


Moldbreakers

by Exewon



Series: Exewon's fantastical reimagining of cannon [2]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comic)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Family Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2020-09-28 20:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exewon/pseuds/Exewon
Summary: They've escaped from Cassandra's clutches, but her and Scourge being on the loose is the least of Tails' problems. Still struggeling with the backlash of his last adventure. Tails now has to navigate the pitfalls ofkeeping Fiona's secret safe with him while his long absent parents have resurfaced and are trying to reconnect with him.





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing that Tails felt as he slowly clawed his way back to consciousness, was the way every single muscle in his body felt like it was made out of lead. Heavy and stiff to the point of being unresponsive, and his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. He forced his eyes open and winced at the sunlight.   
  
“You’re awake.”   
  
“Sally?” He groaned as he lifted a hand to shield his eyes. “How long was I out?” He tried to push himself up, but Sally put a gentle hand on his shoulder and kept him down.   
  
He saw Sally push the call button next to his bed before she pulled him into a hug. “Almost four days, I was worried sick” Her voice cracked a bit, “we just didn’t know when you would wake up. You were in terrible shape Tails.” She pulled out of the hug and gave him a stern stare. “Never, ever, do that again. You could’ve died. Whatever energy you pulled out of that shard was poisoning your body from the inside out. If we hadn’t gotten you when we did, it... it could’ve been much worse.” Her face softened. “So please, don’t do that ever again. None of us would know what to do if we lost you.”   
  
“I won’t.” He shuddered at the memories of it all. The rush of power, the anger and hatred that coursed through him. That wasn’t him, that would never be him. “I really won’t.” Hating somebody that thoroughly, even when it was somebody as loathsome as Cassandra… wait.   
  
“Did you find them?”    
  
Worry crept on her face. “No, we didn’t. All that was left in the base were the empty shells and destroyed machinery. They knew what to do in case this happened. We’re looking through the rubble to get any clues as to where they might have fled to.”   
  
“Maybe I can help wi...” He grunted as he tried to swing his legs over the edge of the bed.   
  
Sally’s grip tightened on his shoulder and she pushed his butt right into bed. “No, you’re not going to do anything right now.” 

“You can’t expect me to do nothing while somebody like that is still out there!”   
  
“I do, for now. Tails, you’re in the hospital, you  _ just  _ woke up and you have other things to focus on before you dash off into adventure, right after you got out of it.”   
  
“Sally, there is a madwoman out there who is obsessed with me. What else could be focusing on?”   
  
She rubbed her temples as she took a deep breath. And Tails didn’t like that one bit. Sally never delivered good news when she did that. 

“We found your parents, Tails.” Sally gave him a small nervous smile. “We liberated a large amount of roboticized mobians from a Robotnik storage facility.”

Tails’ mouth uselessly opened and closed.

“Your parents, Rosemary and Amadeus Prower, were found amongst them. They have been deroboticized and are eager to meet you.”   
  
Sally gently shook him by the shoulder. “Tails?”

He looked up at her and there was only one word that came to mind.   
  
“What?”

\--------------------------------------------------

Days of doctors poking and prodding him in every spot that they could all blurred together, but he didn’t mind it gave him more time to prepare to meet his parents.    
  
His parents, it felt strange to even think that sentence. He didn’t remember them and with the war against Dr. Robotnik lost, he hadn’t even had a picture or anything else to even give him an idea of what they looked like. Just occasional mentions of them by the older members of the resistance and even those were far and in between. Everybody had lost their loved ones and it was just painful for everybody involved to mention any of them. It brought grief and in those dark times nobody had the time to grieve. Not when everybody was needed to fight against Dr. Robotnick’s regime.    
  
But now they were back, found by accident in a liberated Robian storage facility and restored to their old selves. Free to experience life again and eager to meet him, with everybody around him just thinking everything would just fall into place and they  _ suddenly _ would become as close as parents and child should be.    
  
He didn’t need this, not when Cassandra was still lurking out here, eager to do who knows what to him. Not when Cassandra was just as eager to get her hands on Fiona as she was to get those hands on him. He shivered at that image. And Fiona was out there, without anybody to rely on and he didn’t even know if she would use the beacon. What if she lost the beacon? Or what if she got caught? Fiona was great at keeping herself hidden and out of harm's way when she wanted to. But she was still just a single person and Cassandra could’ve had an entire army for as much as they knew. They only destroyed a single base of her. It could’ve been her only base. But it could’ve been just one of dozens of bases dotted around the globe. And the not knowing was the worst part of the deal.

His tails curled around his legs and stomach; it felt like he had been eating cement. The ‘proper’ dress shirt was to tight around his neck, no matter how much he tugged on it and the collar dug into his fur and skin in awkward places. And the shoe’s were brand new, still to tight and not properly worn down to be truly comfortable

“Tails, you’ll be fine,” Sally said as she fussed a bit with the collar of his dress shirt. Pulling it right back into the uncomfortable spot.   
  
“Can’t I just... wear my usual stuff?”

“I would have let you wear your ‘usual stuff’ if you had any shirts or pants without oil stains on them,” she said matter of factly. Her fingers brushed over the discolourments still lingering in his fur.   
  
“I...” he wrung his hands together. “Just… this all is just completely insane.”   
  
Sally sighed as she pulled him closer. “I know, it’s a shock to everybody to get them back in our lives, and you never expected this would happen. But they are good people, Tails, and they want to be in your life. They deserve a chance at that, don’t they?”

They probably did, but he got the feeling that no matter what. They were going to be a fixture in his life and that really worried him. What if they didn’t like him? What if he wasn’t what they wanted in a son? He could think of so many things of it all going to go horribly wrong.   
But all that came out of his mouth was;

“I guess.”   
  
The door opened and Sonic poked his head in. “You ready, Tails? Your folks are here.” 

Sally gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “It’s going to go just fine, you’ll see.”

Tails grit his teeth and squared his shoulders, biting back the panic clawing at his throat, rising higher with each step closer towards the door.   
  
It was time.   
  


\---------------

Tails shuffled into the room, an awkward smile on his face. 

  
His mother’s hands covered her mouth as tears welled up. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe, lingering on the blue streaks in his fur.

“You’re all grown up.” She closed the distance and pulled him into a tight hug. “Gods, how many years did we miss?”    
  
Tails froze and his ears went flat against his head as he was pressed close to his mother. His tails flicked nervously before curling around his legs. To close, to close, way to close. His arms were held stiff besides him as his brain hopelessly tried to figure out what to do. His throat felt screwed shut and he just waited. She couldn’t just hold him for the entire conversation… right?

“Rosemary, give him a little space.” Amadeus said as he put a hand on his wife’s shoulder.   
  
Tails craned his neck to send a grateful look to Amadeus

“Oh!” She pulled back. “I’m sorry Miles. I got a little bit too excited.”

“Tails,” he blurted out, wincing when both of his parents looking at him with confusion. “I… prefer to go by my nickname, Tails.”

“Oh,” Rosemary’s gaze flicked towards her husband. Who looked just as confused. “Why do you prefer your nickname?” She gently prodded.

Tails wasn’t sure if he hadn’t imagined it, but he could’ve sworn he saw a look of hurt flicker through his parents' eyes.   
  
Tails rubbed his hand over his upper arm as he shrugged, looking down at his feet. “Dunno, I always went by Tails.”.   
  
An awkward silence stretched between them, and Tails silently hoped Sonic would barge into the room with his usual lack of tact to break it. Or Sally, or anybody.   
  
“Well,” Amadeus cleared his throat. “Would you mind if we called you by your real name?”    
  
“Does it really matter that much?”   
  
“It’s the only thing we managed to give you before we… got taken.” Rosemary gave him a pleading look. “It would mean a lot to us Miles,” rosemary’s eyes widened as she quickly back paddled. “Tails! Sorry.”   
  
The mention of his name made his skin crawl with bad memories, of Cassandra, of other villains, of his evil counterpart. He glanced up, both his parents looking at him with hope in their eyes. 

“Well, sure I guess.” He plastered a brittle smile on his face. He’d get over it, it was just a name. 

At least, that’s what he told himself as he tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut.   
  
“I’m so relieved to hear that,” Rosemary said with a wide smile as she gestured at the stools. “Now, why don’t we sit down? There has to be so much you have to tell us!”   
  
Tails sat down, sinking into his chair as both of his parents sat in front of him. His throat felt dry and he uselessly searched his brain to find something to talk about. Anything. But his brain was pulling a blank.   
  
“Well, I... just don’t know where to start. What would you like to know?” 

Amadeus smiled as he shook his head gently. “We’re not interrogating you. You can start where you want. Or ask about whatever you want.” 

“Who are you guys?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, his ears flattened against his head as he looked away. Of all the times to put his foot in his mouth. “I... well... that came out wrong.” He rubbed his hand through his hair, keeping his eyes firmly on the ground. “It’s just, I don’t know anything about either of you. Aside from Sally and Antoine, nobody really knew you two, and… They didn’t exactly talk about you. Nobody really talked about the people they lost. It just hurt them all to much. So I just never really knew about my parents and I never really asked.”    
  
He winced at that. “I mean, I thought I knew what I needed to know. You guys were gone and I was an orphan raised by Rosie. Just like the other younger Freedom fighters. But now you’re both  _ here _ and… I dunno.”

He peeked upwards; nobody was freaking out yet, so he might be dodging a bullet. “It’s really, really weird. I wasn’t expecting either of you to really play a part in my life at all, but here you are.”

Rosemary looked like he had struck her in the face, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Tails searched for anything that he could say that might comfort her, and sagged slightly as Amadeus gently squeezed her hand, snapping her back to the here and now. She quickly wiped away the few traces of tears and recomposed herself.

“We know this is all very strange for you, Miles,” Amadeus said slowly. “Believe me, it’s just as strange for us as it is for you. Last time we saw you, you were barely a few months old, and now,” he gestured at Tails. “You’re nearly an adult.”

“If it had been up to us,” Rosemary began, hesitating as she grasped her husband’s hand tightly, “we would never have left you behind. But Robotnik's forces were looking for us, for everybody who had even the slightest hint of a connection to the government. We had to hide you away. We never thought… we had no idea… we never meant to leave you behind. We hoped that we could come get you after we drew them away.” Rosemary’s ears flattened against her head and Amadeus pulled her in close.

“But we never got the chance,” she whispered. “ Moments after we hid you, his robots captured us and we were roboticized. We both thought that was it. That we would never see you again.” She smiled and looked at him. “But here we are. Finally seeing our baby boy again. We’ve been given a chance to actually be your parents.”

“We want to be part of your life, Miles, to make up for everything we missed and for all the times we couldn’t be there for you.”

Tails honestly didn’t know if he wanted them to be there from now on. The thought flickered through his mind for just a moment and he felt disgusted at himself for even thinking it. All they wanted was to get to know him, to be a part of his life. Something they should’ve been able to do from the start, but was cruelly ripped away from them.   
  
“Okay. I mean... I want the same. To be a part of your life I mean. Not mine.” He winced at how he was mangling his own words, ears flat against his head. 

Rosemary and Amadeus ignored his babbling, both of them grinning from ear to ear, and Tails was pretty sure he could see both of their tails wag with joy. 

“You have no idea how much of a relief that is to hear, Miles,” Rosemary said as she wiped some tears out of the corner of her eyes.    
  
“But enough about us,” Amadeus stated, “We’ve been talking so much about ourselves and what we went through that we barely heard you talk.”

Rosemary smiled and scooted a bit closer to the edge of her seat. Putting all of her attention on him. “Yes, I would love to hear what my son has been up to.”   
  
Tails gave them a shaky smile. Talking about all the things he did with the freedom fighters and in knothole. He could do that.

“So, how are you doing in school?” Amadeus asked.

Tails frowned. “I don’t go to school. I wouldn’t have time to be a freedom fighter if I had to waste most of my time there.” 

“Waste?” Rosemary frowned at him. “Miles, education is never a waste.”   
  
Tails rolled his eyes. “I would be stuck behind a desk. Listening to a teacher who knows less about it than I do. I can think of a lot more productive uses of my time.” 

“Miles,” Rosemary cut in, “I know you’re at that age where you think you know everything in the world, but there is more to the world then what you think there is.”   
  
Tails frowned. “I’ve traveled all around the world, multiple times. I’ve learned more that way than behind a desk. Sally and Sonic agree with me on that.”   
  
“Then your father and I will be having a talk with both of them, later. It’s irresponsible, that’s what it is…” Her rant was cut short when Amadeus put a hand on her shoulder and coughed.   
  
“Your mother is right, Miles, there is more to school then just knowledge. It’s a place where a young man like you can interact with others his own age, for one. Where you get exposed to others’ viewpoints.” He got a sly look in his eyes, “Maybe even get a girlfriend?”   
  
Tails couldn’t help it, heat crept up from his neck all the way to the tips of his ears.    
  
He could see the teasing smiles creep on both of Rosemary and Amadeus’ faces, quickly burying his own face in his hands.

“Wha... what does that have to do with anything? Loads of people get a girlfriend outside of school. Sonic never went to school, and he got together with Sally.”

“I’m not saying it’s impossible. But a place where you’re mingling with people your own age, that could be mighty helpful. For instance,” he put his arm around his wife and pulled her closer. “It’s where I met the love of my life.” 

“Okay!” Somehow, he felt the tips of his ears become even redder. “Can we talk about something else? Anything else. Please?” 

There was an uncomfortable stretch of silence. He could feel their eyes linger on the blue streaks in his fur and he knew the question burning in their minds. He just hoped they didn’t ask. 

Rosemary finally broke the silence, “So, what exactly do you enjoy doing in your spare time, Miles?”   
  
Tails relaxed a little bit as the conversation went to more familiar waters. “I fly a lot, I even built my plane from the ground up. I call it the Tornado.” 

“You built your own plane.” Amadeus deadpanned, while Rosemary looked at him like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“I mean, Rotor helped me with it. But most of it was built by me.”

“That’s quite impressive. Though your plane can’t be the only hobby you have, right Miles?” Amadeus spoke up.

“Well, when I’m not flying in it, I’m usually working on it, or another one of my projects.”

“You spend a lot of time in the workshop,” Rosemary said as she glanced at her husband. “Doesn’t that ever get… lonely?”    
  
Tails shrugged. “I have the freedom fighters around. So, no, not really.” 

“Most of the freedom fighters are quite a bit older than you, Miles. Doesn’t that bother you?” Rosemary gently probed.   
  
Tails scrunched up his nose and crossed his arms. “ _ Should _ it bother me?”

“No, but it is a bit worrying to me. Most teenagers like hanging out with people their age. Is there a reason you avoid them?” Rosemary’s tail flicked anxiously as she wrung her hands, her hackles slowly rising. “Are they excluding you?”   
  
“What? No!” He looked at both of his parents. “Why would you think that? I just… don’t really have much to talk about with them. “

“Ah, so you just need a bit of help to come out of your shell,” Amadeus said with a nod. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you with that, Miles.”

Somehow, that didn’t reassure Tails at all. But he just plastered a smile on his face and nodded. They were just trying to help, right?   
  
\------------------------   
  


Tails let out a sigh of relief as Amadeus and Rosemary finally took their leave, resting his head in his hands.    
  
A knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts, and he lifted his head, looking over to see Sally poke her head into the room. She gave him a gentle smile as she walked over and sat down next to him.    
  
“So, how did it go?”    
  
He flopped back against the sofa and groaned.

“That bad?” She brushed her hand through his hair. “It’ll get easier when you get to know them a bit better, Tails.”    
  
He cracked open an eye and looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “Really?”   
  
“Yes, really. Now come on. Why don’t we go and find Sonic and see what he managed to scrounge up to eat?” She gave him a gentle pat on the back.   
  
Tails dragged himself out of the chair, looking at Sally in confusion. “You let Sonic cook?” 

“It’ll be fine! We don’t have enough ingredients to make chilli-dogs. So he’d have to make something else! And the stores are closed about now, so he can’t quickly hop in and get what he needs. So this time he’d have to make something at least halfway healthy,” she said with a self satisfied smile on her face.   
  
Tails shook his head, lips curling with amusement. The day Sonic didn’t manage to get his hands on chilli-dogs was the day Tails ate his tails.

\------------   
  
Tails stretched himself out as he walked into the workshop. It felt like it had been forever since he’d been here, and now nothing was going to stand in his way of having a nice relaxing afternoon. Just him and the Tornado.    
  
He hummed as he unrolled the plans of the Tornado on his workspace, and then stopped in his tracks as he saw his console blink slightly. 

Plans forgotten, he pulled it closer and took a look at the alert.    
  
The beacon he’d given to Fiona had been activated. His stomach tightened as an unidentifiable mass of emotions roiled through his head. She had actually used it. He had hoped she would use it, but there had always been this nagging voice in the back of his head that she wouldn’t. 

So... change of plans. He needed to get out there, see what the trouble was, without anybody knowing what he was actually up to. He shuddered at the thought of the freedom fighters knowing he was going after Fiona of all people. That was a disaster he would rather not tackle today. Or ever.   
  
He shook his head. He just needed to keep it simple. First, get the plane loaded up and ready for takeoff, then let somebody know he was going to take a flight, and make sure no one smelled anything fishy going on. If anyone would catch on to him, it would probably be Rotor, but if Tails was lucky, the old mechanic would be too preoccupied with his own projects, and keeping the entire workshop in one piece, to ask too many questions.    
  
Tails shut down the console, shoved his tools in his to go bag, and got to work   
  
\---   
  
The Tornado was fueled up and ready, all systems were go, and he had even managed to scrounge up something vaguely edible to serve as dinner during the flight. Now that the easy parts were over and done with, it was time to find Rotor and actually get permission to fly. 

His eyes flicked towards the Tornado, all ready for takeoff. Why did he need to ask permission in the first place? He was fifteen, not a child, and he could fly better than all the freedom fighters put together. He could just radio them about it as soon as he was in the air, that way it wouldn't seem like he had vanished into thin air, which would probably cause everybody to panic.   
  
Tails hit the switch to open the hangar bay doors and walked towards the Tornado. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. Less time wasted. He started up the engine and taxied to the runway. 

The radar showed clean skies and he smiled as he slowly accelerated and took off. The wind brushing against his muzzle brought a smile to his face, one that grew wider when he took off high into the sky. Stress melted off him, the clear skies stretching out for miles as the ground became smaller and smaller. From up here, his troubles just looked so inconsequential. To bad it only seemed to be that way.   
  
He double-checked his coordinates and reached for the communicator built into the Tornado.

“Tornado to ground, Tornado to ground. Do you copy?” Tails slowly circled above Knothole as he waited for a response. It didn’t take long before the radio crackled and a tinny voice spoke up.   
  
“Tails?” Rotor’s voice was easily recognisable even through the radio. “Wait, what are you doing in the air?”

“I’m going to take a quick flight, should be back before this evening. Nothing to worry about.”   
  
“Did you tell Sally about this?”   
  
“Nooo, but like I said, I’m just taking a flight and I’ll be back before evening. It’s not like I’m on duty for the freedom fighters or anything, so why can’t I take a break?”   
  
Rotor sighed, “We’ll see how Sally feels about that, Tails. But I have more productive things to do than argue with you about this. Have a fun flight and make sure you’re back before the evening. Else I  _ will _ ground your plane.”   
  
“Sure Rotor, sure you will.” As if anybody could keep his plane locked up if he really wanted to get to it.   
  
The radio went silent and Tails brought up the navigational computer and charted his course.

\-----------------------------------------

  
Fiona’s signal was coming from a small settlement in the middle of nowhere, a few hours away from Knothole. It didn’t take Tails long to find a place where he could set his plane down and land within walking distance of the town. Locked down his plane, got his backpack with his lunch and supplies out of the plane and started walking.   
  
As soon as he arrived at the town, he was greeted with suspicious looks. A place like this, remote and far out of the reach of Knothole government, was usually populated with people who had a reason to stay out of their reach. Malcontents against the government, anti-monarchists, and other people that couldn’t stand the new leadership. And here he was, Tails the freedom fighter, and the only bigger icons of the new government were Sally, Sonic, and the royal family.    
  
This might have not been the best of ideas. But he had told Fiona he would come when she activated the beacon, and he was a fox of his word. Now, he just needed to find her, but in a town this small everybody should know everybody, or at least know of a newcomer to the place. 

So... time to ask around.   
  
\--------

Tails was starting to hate this town. Not even ten minutes in, and he was about to eat his tails in frustration. Vagueness, people disengaging from the conversation, or just outright hostility whenever he tried asking around. 

“Hey, Tails,” A nervous voice said from behind him. A  _ familiar  _ voice.   
  
He turned around and saw Fiona standing there. His stomach felt fluttery, anxiety creeping up on him as she walked closer. The dark recesses of his mind pulling up the  _ long  _ list of misdeeds and betrayals. She wasn’t like that anymore, she said she was stepping back on the right path. And he believed her. She saved his life. That was more then proof enough wasn’t it?    
  
He gave her a smile, ignoring the fact that the fluttering in his stomach only became worse when she smiled back at him.

“I’ve been looking all over the place for you.” He said, frowning as he took a closer look at her.    
  
She’d ditched the uniform for a simple set of shorts and a T-shirt. But her entire left arm was covered in tightly wound bandages. And he could see other sets poking out from underneath her shorts and T-shirt. “Are, Are you okay?” he hesitantly asked.

“Just a bit banged up. It’s not even half as bad as what you had to go through. A bit of rest and some painkillers will fix me right up.” 

Tails raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.   
  
“Right, you can badger me about that later.” She waved it of.   
“But It didn’t take long for the scuttlebut to reach me about _ the _ Tails of Knothole being here .So we need to get you out of the streets soon. Most folks here just want to be left alone. But there are some serious anti-monarchists here who might just do something very stupid.” 

“Okay, do you got a place?”

“Yeah, just follow me.”

\---__-

Fiona brought him to a small… well, Tails wouldn’t really call it a house. More a shed squeezed in between a bunch of other, similarly haphazard sheds. One room, no electricity or running water. Nothing more than a roof over her head and a lock so nobody could steal her stuff.    
  


“I would offer you a seat, but, you know.” Fiona smiled sheepishly as she gestured around the bare cot. “So, how are you?” She gestured at the patches in his fur. “When I left you, you didn’t look very good.”

Tails was slowly getting sick of hearing that question. But he shrugged it off. He was pretty much halfway unconscious last time she saw him.

  
“I’m doing fine. Been better, but you don’t need to worry. Worst thing that’ll linger is the discoloured patches. So what about you? Are you okay?”

“I can handle myself. I’ve been in worse places than this. So don’t you worry.”

An awkward silence settled between them. Neither of them was sure how to continue the conversation. 

“So.” Tails broke the silence. Fiona stopped fiddling and looked at him. “Why did you use the beacon?” Tails’ eyes widened a bit at how that sounded. “I mean, that’s why I gave it to you and I’m happy you wanted to talk to me. Just, you know, wondering.”

“I ,needed... No, I mean..well. wanted to see if you were okay.” She fidgeted. “When I left you behind, you were in a really bad state and I wanted to know how you were doing. Slipping in and out of consciousness.” she rubbed along her bandaged arm.    
  
She smiled and that fluttering sensation was back into his stomach. “I’m really glad to see you’re alright.

“Yeah, I’m doing a lot better since then. Not that it stopped Sally and the others treating like I’m made outa glass.” Tails couldn’t help the annoyance that seeped into his voice.   
  
“Ha, at least it means they care right?”   
  
“Yeah, I guess.” He chuckled. “Still a bit annoying though.” 

“Eh, I wouldn’t know.”   
  
Tails’ winced at that. “Sorry, ”   
  
An awkward silence came over them, neither of them sure how to break the silence.   
  
Tails swallowed and took a deep breath. He hadn’t snuck out under Sally’s nose, just to be stuck in an awkward silence. “So.. euh, was that, I was okay the only question you had?”   
  
Fiona’s tail fluffed out as her gaze snapped towards him. “Why… why wouldn’t it be?”   
  
“Because it sounded like you wanted to say something else before you changed it.”   
  
“Oh.” she smoothed out her tail again. “Yeah… I did wanted to ask you something else.. Yu don’t have to help me with it if you don’t want to.” she quickly reassured him. “And it isn’t like I didn’t want to know how you were doing after the… ordeal. So, what do you say?”

“I can’t really answer until you ask the question, now can I?”   
  
Fiona rolled her eyes, but he could see her trying to keep the smile off her face. 

“I was getting there, mister sarcastic.” She gave him a playful prod. “I want to get back at Scourge, get the fucker behind bars, if I can. But, well, all I have is this.” She gestured at the rather bare room. “There is no way in hell I can find somebody like Scourge when he is trying to hide, not when I have no contacts, and no equipment. I’m not asking you to hand over everything that the freedom fighters have on him. But if you’ve got a few leads I would gladly look into them?”   
  
Tails’ scratched his chin. “I can help with that. Not just giving you leads, but I really wouldn’t mind at all if.. You know, I helped you follow up on them. But, what would we do if we actually  _ found _ him?” 

The question hung heavy in the air.    
  
“I mean, It’s Scourge, he’s just as fast as Sonic. And super speed is a pain to deal with if you aren’t a speedster yourself. And I don’t think we could call in the freedom fighters without you getting thrown in jail yourself. So Sonic is out.”   
  
Tails could see Fiona shudder at the thought. “Yeah, let’s not get the freedom fighters involved if we can help it.” she thought it over and then shrugged. “I have no idea on how to handle him. But I can’t just sit back and let him get away with what he did.” She gave him a nervous smile, we’ll figure something out. We don’t have the cross that bridge just yet right?”   
  
Tails scratched his head and nodded. “I can probably ask Sonic about it, he’ll be able to tell me something about how to deal with speedsters, right?”   
  
“Ye…” fiona was interrupted as somebody thumped loudly on the front door.”    
  
“I know you’re keeping Tails in there!”

Tails flinched at the venom in that voice.

“Open the fucking door!”

  



	2. Chapter 2

“I said! Open. the. fucking. door, Fiona!” The murmurings of an incensed crowd were heard. “Or We’ll break it down!”   
  
Shit, shit, shit. Fiona had hoped she had gotten Tails out of the streets fast enough so the local firebrands wouldn’t get wind of him being around. Or at least that they couldn’t find him before she got him the hell out.   
  


“There isn’t anybody here but me you asshole. Now stop trying to break down my door! Or I’ll make you fix it!” She yelled back. Hoping to buy some time.    
  
Tails grabbed her by the wrist and leaned in close. “Is there another way out of here?” He whispered.   
  
“Not unless you want to break through the walls.” Fiona gave them a quick look and grimaced. They probably could get through them, they were just planks of wood. But it would take way more time than they had. Especially when they heard the wood breaking.   
  
“Just stay behind me. I’ll try to handle this.” She turned the handle. Immediately the idiot on the other side of the door tried to shove it open completely. Fiona had to throw her body against the door to keep them from barging inside. She peered through the crack. Murder in her eyes.    
  
“Don’t even  _ try _ to force myself into my home.” Fiona glared at the small crowd, a few of the mobians flinching at her stare and scrambling back. But the female rabbit mobian at the front of the crowd got into her face. Her remaining eye narrowed with anger and hatred. 

“Don’t act stupid. I know you’ve got that  _ puppet  _ hiding in there. And if you know what’s good for us all. You’ll step out of the way and hand him over.” She hissed.    
  
Fiona resisted the urge to glance at Tails and braced herself against the door.

“You’re delusional. I’m the only one here!” she shot back.    
  
“You LIE!” The rabbit lunged forwards, trying to shove herself through the crack. “They SAW you with him. They saw you TALK to him and they saw you bring him back here!” Her eye was spread wide open, rage or insanity simmering in it’s depths as she stared daggers at Fiona.

“If you’re not going to let us in.” She backed off from the door .“Then we’ll force our way in.” With a quick jerk of her head the crowd closed in. 

They were trapped, this was the last time Fiona took a hideout with only a single entrance. But if there were no sane options left. Do what nobody would ever expect, it just might take them by surprise. 

Her eyes flicked towards Tails with the both of them they just might be able to get outa this mess.   
  
She yanked open the door with a loud snarl. “Tails, we’re leaving!”

“Got it!” Tails yelled back.   
  
The rabbit foamed at the mouth in anger as she threw herself at Fiona.    
  
Fiona couldn’t help but smile as the rabbit left herself wide open. She twisted herself and kicked the short woman right into the face. Wincing as the shock of it reverberated up her leg.    
  
Her pelvis hurt, whatever had cracked during the fight against Gregory still hadn’t healed right and kicking the woman in the face, no matter how satisfying. Might’ve not been the best idea. 

“I’ve got you.” She could hear Tails’ tails beating against the air as he took flight. His hands hooking underneath her armpits and janking her up into the air. A few members of the crowd grabbed at them. Fiona gritted her teeth against the coming pain and dissuaded them from with a well aimed kick at their face.    
  
From Tails’ labored breathing however. The flight wouldn’t last long. He only took them up to the roof of buildings on the other side of the road before they landed there on the roof. Well landed, it was more like a controlled crash.    
  
“You okay?” Fiona called out to Tails, ignoring her aching legs and pelvis as she stumbled back to her feet.

“I’m fine,” Tails gasped out. 

Fiona frowned, he didn’t sound alright, but she could ask him about it after this was over.   
The baying of the crowd was getting closer and closer. “Where is your plane? We gotta get out of here.”

“Just outside the town.” He pointed in a direction and Fiona winced, that would take them right through the middle of it all. And she had no clue how big of a crowd that rabbit had stirred up. So the straight and shortest path to it was out.

“So what is the plan?” Tails asked, still outta breath.

“Tails, follow me. We’re gonna take the long route.” She jumped down the other side of the building. Groaning as her legs and hips ached in protest. Tails hitting the ground besides her moments later. She wracked her brain. Incomprehensible yells of the crowd were interspersed with understandable snippets ‘get to the other side’ and ‘get them!’. They didn’t have long. 

She should’ve gotten out more in the few days that she’d been here. But that was in the past, nothing to be done about it now. She dashed of in between some of the shacks. If they could just stay off the main roads and get outta town. They could circle back towards the plane. But even these little cramped alley’s couldn’t hide them for long. The town was small and sooner or later the mob would find them.    
She looked over her shoulder at Tails and frowned. He looked pale, sweat clinging to his fur and his tails dragging across the ground as he was lagging behind. She paused until he was caught up.

“Are you al…”

“I’m fine.” He insisted. “Just out of shape. We’ve have to keep moving.” 

They slunk through the claustrophobic pathways in between the shacks. Ears perked up and flinching at any sound. The baying of the mob looking for them eerily echoing in the distance and coming closer and closer by the moment. 

“Are you sure we can take it this slow?” Tails asked, ears flat to his head and flicking his tails nervously. “They’re getting closer.”   
  
“Do you think you can outrun the entire mob if they catch us?” 

Tails opened his mouth to reply. But Fiona cut him off. “Because I don’t think you can even run. Just carrying me up the shacks a while ago wiped you out and you’re still exhausted from it.”   
  
Fiona could see Tails furrowed his brow in anger, lips twitching like he wanted to bear his teeth at her. But he instead crossed his arms and looked away. 

“I’m fine. How often do I need to keep telling everybody that. I’m not made out of glass.” he hissed.

“And I’m not risking it. I’m not really keen to get anybody  _ lynched _ . So we’re going at your pace. Now do you want to waste more time complaining and arguing, or actually get out of here?” She tapped her foot. 

Tails grumbled, “fine, lets keep going then.” 

Both of them froze when they heard footfalls and mutterings. Fiona reacted quickly, dragging Tails with her into a half collapsed shed. Carefully peeking around it with her ears perked up, listening for anything.   
  
“Fucking piece of crap.” She heard a voice bouncing off the walls as a mobian hedgehog and his much larger wolf friend came into view. “We welcomed her here, gave her a roof over her head and what the hell does she do. Bring one of the  _ freedom  _ fighters right onto our doorstep.” The venom in the hedgehog’s voice made a shiver go down Fiona’s spine. 

She quickly glanced at Tails. Who was still slightly bent over from exhaustion and the look on his face told her enough. He wasn’t able to get into a fight just yet. And honestly? Fiona didn’t think she was either. Her legs and hips still ached and didn’t feel like it would get better soon. She pressed herself closer to the wall trying to make herself as small as possible. Her hand closing on a loose plank. Hoping that they would just pass the both of them by. She didn’t like her chances.   
  
But they couldn’t let them yell out. So if they saw her or tails. Her grip tightened. Both of them passed them, the hedgehog still moaning and complaining. Walking past them hidden in the collapsed shed. Her muscles tensed, ready to spring into action and she could feel Tails’ tails flick against her legs as he tensed up.    
  
_ Just keep walking _ . 

Her eyes flicked around, looking for a way out. There was a door in the shed, but they had no clue where it led to. Not to mention they would definitely hear that one open. The way back was way to open and they clearly couldn’t go in the direction that the mobians were going. But there was a very small crevice in between two sheds that led towards the direction they were going to. It might be a tight fit, but they could squeeze themselves through that.   
  
She gently elbowed Tails and pointed towards it. Relief washed over his face and he nodded.    
Fiona waited a few more moments before she quietly dashed towards the crevice and shoved herself in it and pushed herself further into the crevice. Then gestured at Tails to take the plunge.   
  
She waited with baited breath and Tails quietly made his way over to the crevice and shoved himself inside, letting out a sigh of relief as she didn’t hear any sign of either of the mobians having noticed. She carefully began to shove herself deeper into the crevice.

\-----

It only took a few minutes before they reached the other end of the claustrophobic twisting crevice. She tried not to think of the grime and who knows what else that was clinging in her hair and fur after this. She could worry about that after they escaped. She carefully poked her head out of the crevice, looking for anybody part of the mob.

Nobody, nothing but the faraway noises of the angry mob. Good, they were on the final stretch. SHe turned towards Tails, who was at least not breathing that heavily anymore, though he still looked paler then she found comfortable. “How close are we?”

“Very close,” Tails pointed down the street and towards the small hill just outside the town. “If we get to the top of that hill we should see it.” 

Fiona frowned, it was good that they were that close. But still, what if the mob had found the plane? Then they would be in deep shit. She squeezed herself out of the crevice. Tails following right after. 

“Look, Fiona.” Tails hissed as they began making their way towards the edge of the town. “We’re nearly there. I can make this run. It’s really not that far. And the longer we stay here the bigger the chance they find us.”

Fiona’s eyes flicked between him and the distance they still had to make. The angry crowd audible in the distance.   
  
“Lets go.” They took off. Dashing through the shanty town and towards where Tails had said his plane was. Fiona taking care to stay with Tails and not overshoot him. They could make it. The mob wasn’t anywhere to be seen yet a…   
  
“There they are!” A hate filled cry went.   
  
Fiona scowled. She just had to jinx it didn’t she? She didn’t dare to look back and just kept running behind Tails. Legs aching with every single step. The slow incline of the hill making it even worse.   
  
With her, it was just an aching pelvis and the ache in her legs slowly worsening.But she could push through it. With tails? He was slowing down, rapidly. She gave a quick look over her shoulder. The mob quickly closing in.   
  
“Tails, I’m carrying you.” She didn’t wait for a confirmation.Just grabbing him around the waist and throwing him over her shoulder. Wincing at the sudden weight pushing down on her.   
  
“He.. hey!”    
  
She ignored his complaints and kept going. Trying to focus only on running. Trying to ignore the squirming and protests of Tails and the sounds of the mob closing in. crossing the top of the hill. 

“Don’t let them escape!”   
  
She heard something fly through the air. Smacking into her back and sending her and Tails rolling down the hill. She barely managed to roll herself into a ball. When she finally came to a stop, the world was spinning and dazed for a few long moments before she could try to struggle to her feet. Her stomach lurching, everything aching and her legs unable to find purchase on the ground. The plane was  _ right there.  _ Almost taunting in how close it was. But the mob was closer.   
  
“Fiona!” Tails was standing next to the plane, hands on it’s hull as a familiar green sheen flickered over his fur. “Cover your eyes and ears!”    
  


She didn’t think. She just slapped her hands over her ears and closing her eyes.   
  
Just in time. The world seemed to explode, Bright light visible through her closed eyelids and even with her hands clasped over hear ears. They were still ringing.    
  
She opened up her eyes again. An exhausted Tails clambering in his airplane as he frantically waved her over. She stumbled upright and crawled into the plane with all the grace of a drunk teenager.   
  
“FASTEN UP!” Tails yelled, barely audible over the ringing in her ears. The plane slowly began to turn away and pick up speed. She fumbled with the seatbelt and looked behind them. Not able to help the savage grin crawling on her face as she saw the entire mob knocked onto the ground, clutching their ears and eyes. The rabbit mobian that had led the pack the only one unsteadily trying to rise to her feet.   
  
“See you never, assholes.” She laughed. They probably couldn’t hear her.But they were sure to understand the rude gesture she made, the ones that could see again at least.. The grin only widened as they finally left the ground, leaving the mob in the dust. 

\------   
  
As the adrenaline flooded away, aches, pains and exhaustion crashed into her. She sunk into her seat and closed her eyes. Trying to get a bit of rest and just listening to the wind rushing past them.   
  
“Fiona?”   
  
“Hmmm?” She cracked open an eye. Tails was still looking straight ahead, “What is it?”

“Ehm… where do you want to go next?” Tails said with hesitation. “I mean… you’re still wanted by quite a lot of people. So I don’t think I can drop you off at any of the really big cities. The freedom fighters and the kingdom would figure out you’re there almost instantly.”

Yeah, that was a bit of an issue. She sat up a little bit straighter. She didn’t know of any similar little shitholes like the one they just had fled from. And to be honest, after what happened, she didn’t want to hole up in one of those again. She rather not be in a place where she would have to run for her life whenever Tails showed up. She wanted him to keep coming around.   
  
So she couldn’t settle down in a small town, not one that didn’t hate the government with every fiber of their being anyway. That was the first thing every criminal tried to do, get away as far as possible and out of the way. So any law enforcement worth their salt was gonna keep their eyes on those places. But maybe.. 

“Tails, what cities are around here? Can you see that on that navigational computer of yours?” 

Tails gave her a quick look over his shoulder, face scrunched up in confusion. “Cities? Shouldn’t you keep yourself out of the picture?”

“If it’s crowded enough and I don’t do anything stupid. It should be fine. I’ll be able to hide in the crowd.” She flashed him a confident grin.   
  
Tails, didn’t exactly look completely convinced. “Well… okay. Let's find a place to land and plan this out then. Might be easier then yelling over the wind.”   
  


\---------------------------------

It didn’t take long for Tails to find a spot where he could land and settled down and pulled up the map on his console. Turning in his seat towards her. “So do you just want to know the cities around us, or do you have anything else you’re looking for?”

Fiona leaned forward to get a closer look at the console. Her shoulder brushing against Tails’ in the process. “Any city with a decently large population and without any really important landmarks that would be attractive targets. Like vaults or prisons. Usually the security is way stricter in those places and staying low over there is a pain. Especially if people might know me. And I’ve got no doubt some part of the kingdom’s security knows me from when I was still with.. You know, the asshole.”

Her hands curled into fists at the thought of him. Rage seeping into the corners of her mind. When she got her hands on him, oh he would pay.. He woul...   
  


“Ehm, are you okay Fiona?” 

A hand on her shoulder pulled her away from that train of thought.    
  
“Oh, yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”   
  
Tails rubbed the back of his head, not looking her in the eye. “Well, you kinda zoned out for a minute and you looked well… Extremely pissed?”

“Oh… Sorry, just some bad memories.” She quickly reassured him. “Let's just keep going with this. You know any places like I just described?”

Tails scratched his head as he thought for a bit, before turning back towards the navigation console and punching something in. A few moments later some of the map on the console expanded and a few dots blinked on the map.   
  
She leaned even closer as she tried to get an even better look at the map, the names underneath the dots nearly unreadable in their tiny script.

“Eh.. Fiona?”   
  
“Yes Tails?” She turned, blinking in surprise as Tails’ face was right next to her. 

“Personal space?” Tails managed to croak out. A blush slowly creeping onto his face.   
  
She jerked herself back, putting some space in between the both of them. 

“Right! Sorry!” She forced a chuckle. “So… what are the dots?”

“Oh, right. Those are cities in a 250 km radius with a population of around 10 000 people, no large tourist attractions or governmental facilities of national importance also fairly far away from knothole or other potential targets for the kind of shenanigans Scourge and yo… I mean the rest of his gang was known for.” Tails stuttered the last sentence. Eyes fixed on the console.

Fiona winced at that. Knowing what he swapped out. She hated hearing it, hated being associated with any of it. But like Tails had said, she couldn’t ignore her past. Just try and make up for it.   
  
“Soo, all in all," Tails continued "We got 3 places big enough to get lost in the crowd, don’t have heightened security and they aren’t places other people think you should be. So the freedom fighters wouldn’t specifically go looking for you there. So, if your logic is correct on it. You should be kinda safe there.” 

“I’ve hidden from the police before. So I’m sure I can handle those cities. Thanks Tails, which ones are they?” 

“Twin peaks, marble valley and green hills.”   
  
She had never even heard of Twin Peaks, but she’d been to marble valley once. And that wasn’t something she wanted to ever do again. The place was built on top of some old ruins in the middle of a frigging desert, drawing on some ancient underground waterways for water. It had been hot, dry and every moment was pure misery.   
  
But Green hills? Nice temperate climate, nice lazy atmosphere with little in the way of crime and the food. Her stomach growled, loudly. She felt her cheeks heat up as Tails looked at her. The corners of his mouth quirked upwards with amusement.   
  
“If you’re hungry Fiona, I’ve got some food with me.“

The mention of food immediately got her over her embarrassment. 

We can split it while you decide about this?” He scratched behind his head as looked away in embarrassment. “I probably should’ve mentioned that earlier. I don’t think you’ve managed to get a lot of food in that… “    
  
Fiona couldn’t help but smile as she saw the gears turning in Tails’ head.Trying to find a word that wasn’t an insult but would still fit.

“It was a shithole Tails,” she said with a chuckle. “And yeah, the stuff I ate there could barely be called food. So get it, I’m starving!” She scrambled out of the plane. She didn’t think that Tails would want leftovers and crumbs all over his plane. She doubted he changed on that point.

It didn’t take long for Tails to have retrieved the food, a few simple sandwiches. But the sight of them was enough to get her drooling. Some actual fresh, edible looking food.   
  
Fiona didn’t waste any time, as soon as Tails handed her one she tore it out of his hands and chomped down. The sandwich going down disappointingly fast.

“Did you even taste it? Or chew?” Tails sniggered as he tore the other sandwich in two and offered her another half.

She eyed the sandwich. Stomach grumbling. “You also need to eat something Tails. Half a sandwich isn’t enough for anybody.”

Tails shrugged. “Probably, but I actually managed to get some decent food in me over the last few days. So me missing one meal isn’t the end of the world.”   
  
Her eyes flickered from the offered food towards him. Common decency fighting a losing battle with her stomach and she snatched it out of his hands. “Fine, but as soon as we’re arriving in Green hills I’m buying you a meal. As thanks you know.”

She quickly scoffed down the leftovers. 

“Could you?” Tails asked after he finished his own half a sandwich. “And why green hills?”

“The only reason I didn’t have much decent food was because there  _ was  _ no decent food in a ten kilomiter radius around that shithole Tails. I’ve got more than enough cash with me to tide me over for a while. As for why Green hills?” She shrugged. “No special reason, I just liked it there the last time was there. So why not?”

“Fair enough.” He pushed himself upright and brushed the grass of his trousers. “Let’s get going then. Getting to green hills is gonna take at least one and a half hours.   
  
Fiona got up as well. “Allright, let's get ourselves over to Green hills.”

  
  


\----------------------

“Hey Fiona, we’re nearly there.”

Fiona wasn’t entirely sure when exactly she dozed off during the flight, but the sun was slowly setting, painting the sky with brilliant shades of orange and dark reds. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, arms and legs feeling stiff while she had one hell of a crick in her neck. “Sorry that I dozed off.”

“It’s okay. You probably could’ve used the nap.” Tails said as he slowly began the descent towards an open space for the landing.    
  
Fiona felt a sudden jerk in her stomach as the plane touched down and slowed down to a halt. She didn’t waste any time and clambered out of the plane. Stretching out her limbs, groaning in delight as the stiffness slowly left her limbs.

“Do you think they’ll kick up a fuss because you parked your plane here?” Fiona asked, she was pretty sure Tails had some really annoying anti-theft systems in there. So she doubted any beat cop would be able to do anything about it. But still, the less heat on them the better.   
  
“Why would they? It’s not like they’ve got a designated landing zone for planes. So it’s not like they can admonish me on that Part.” He shrugged. “And if they do, I’ll just move it. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

Tails put his hand on the plane and a faint green tinge was visible around it for just a few moments before it faded away. 

Fiona scratched her head, that still felt so weird. The fact that Tails could talk with machines like that. 

“So, you talked like you knew a bit about this city?” Tails piped up.

“Yeah, I’ve been here before. So just follow me. There is a cheap motel nearby where I can get myself a room and then we’ll go and get you that food.” 

\---

Green hills streets were bustling with people. Mobians of all species were on the streets despite the slowly encroaching night. Or maybe because of it, plenty of people needed to blow steam off in some way. She slowed down and looked at Tails, slightly nervous that she would lose him in the throng of mobians. The last thing she wanted to do was to have to hunt him down in these masses.   
  
“Stay clos..” She couldn’t help a snort escaping from her. “What’s up with your face Tails? You look like somebody shoved a turd underneath your nose.”    
  
“They might’ve well, this place  _ stinks _ ,” Tails said with a skoff. “Don’t they care about keeping their streets clean?”

Fiona just shrugged. “It’s one of the mainstreets. Of course they smell bad.”

“Knothole’s doesn’t.”    
  


“Yeah, but knothole is partially automated and has a fully sentient AI looking over nearly everything of its day to day upkeep. Not to mention it’s the capital. They need that to look good somehow.” She said matter of factly as she came to a stop in front of a rather shabby building. Though compared to her old shack this looked like a five star hotel. It had running water at least and a guarantee of no vermin.   
  
“This actually looks pretty nice.” Tails’ commented as they walked inside.

“What, thought I would gladly live somewhere shitty even if I don’t need to?” she said a teasing smirk on her face.

Wha.. no. I didn….” he pouted as soon as he saw her face. “Very funny.” 

They walked up to the bored looking fox mobian sitting at the desk. “So what's’ the going rate for a room?”. 

“A room for two is about 25 rings a day for a single two person bed. 30 for two singles” The fox mobian said without missing a beat.   
  
Fiona could hear Tails make a choking sound as her brain overheated trying to process the innocent statement. “Ueh.. no, I mean. A room just for me. We’re not together?” She grimaced at how she butchered that sentence.   
  
“Yeh.. I’m, just the taxi?” Tails said in a shaky voice.   
  
“Right, A single room then. That would be 20 rings.”    
  
“Right,” Fiona put the rings on the desk and turned towards Tails as the receptionist was working through the paperwork. “Now that I've got my key we can finally get you that meal I promised.”

“We don’t allow key’s outside of the building.” The receptionist piped up.

Fiona looked at the receptionist, scratching her head in confusion. “Wha?”   
  
“If you’re going outside, we don’t allow you to take your key with you,” the receptionist stated as she handed Fiona a card. “Just show this. We’ll give you your key.” 

“Okay.” Fiona said with a shrug. “ Now,Tails, lets get some food.”

Neither noticed the receptionist’s ears perk up at the name and eyes wandering downwards at Tails’s namesakes. 

\-----------------------------

It didn’t take them long of wandering through the thick crowds to find some small hole in the wall that served noodles. It didn’t take them a long time to order and for two piping bowls of noodles and other stuff to be put down in front of them.   
  
Fiona grinned as Tails just dug right in without even waiting a beat. “Told you, you needed to eat something. ” 

As soon as she made her smug remark she began to slurp up her own food. Moaning in satisfaction as she finally got a full decent meal in what seemed to be weeks.

“So how have you been Tails?” Fiona asked him in between bites. “It’s been what? A week or so since we last saw each other?”

“Not that long. But I’ve been alright.” He thought back to his new... Old parents back home. “Weird, but alright. Sally made sure that the doctors have been poking me with needles to make sure nothing weird happened to me.”

“So, is blue patches in our fur going to be temporary then or ?” Fiona winced as soon as she saw the crestfallen look on Tails’ face when she mentioned it. “You don’t have to answer really, just ask..”

“They dunno, but in the end that’s just fur colour right? I can cover it up with dye if I really have to.” he nervously ran his hands through the fur of his tails, lingering on the azure spots. 

“Nah,” Fiona quickly shot. “I mean, it’s not like its annoying you or anything right? It even kinda looks cool in a way? Like awesome battle scars.”

Tails’ fidgeting stopped and he looked up at her. Fiona’s breath hitched for a few tense moments, not knowing what was churning behind that gaze of his.

A faint smile cracked onto his face. “Thanks Fiona.”

Fiona let out a breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding. Crisis averted. “So aside from being poked by doctors, how is it weird? Just Sally and sonic hovering over you like you’re a newly hatched baby bird?”

Tails shook his head. “Well no.. I mean, they’re doing that too. But ... I… I met my parents?”

Fiona’s eyes went wide, coughing as she choked on her bite of noodles. She beat her fist against her chest a few times. Clearing her windpipe before looking at Tails.   
  
“But, weren’t your parent, you know... Not around anymore?” she gently probed.   
  
“That’s what I thought as well. But apparently not, they were roboticized. And the freedom fighters,well found them when they were retaking old robotnik facilities.” Tails let out an empty chuckle. “Turns out, that they’re not dead at all, just in storage.” 

“That’s good? Right?” Fiona hesitantly stated. Tails didn’t sound ecstatic about it at all. 

“I dunno.” He scratched his head, nervously running his fingers over the strands of hair poking up from his head. “It should feel like that shouldn’t I? Like a good thing. They’re my parents after all.” 

Fiona twiddled with her utensils and She gritted her teeth at the comment about having to care about your parents. Pushing the vitriol she felt towards her own traitors of parents back down. This, this was way way out of her depth and she shouldn’t make it worse by vomiting her own troubles up.

“Well,” but still she had to try at least right? Tails would attempt to do the same for her. She just hoped that she didn’t fuck up everything by saying the wrong thing. “Why aren’t you feeling like that? It’s gotta have a reason right?”

Tails shrugged. “They just kinda.. Well. I don’t know if what I am and what they want in their son really works together. That’s the feeling I’m getting anyway. But I only saw them once yet, so maybe I’m just over-reacting.”   
  
Fiona reached out, hesitating a bit midway, but shaking away her fears and put a hand on his shoulder. Giving it a squeeze that she hoped was comforting. “Yeah, maybe once is not enough. But you know, you don’t owe them anything. If they want you to be in their life, than they can’t just dictate your life and how it goes right? I don’t think parents are supposed to do that.”   
  
“Yeah I guess.”

Fiona gave him another light pat on the back. “To be honest, I didn’t think I would get here. Somewhere in the middle of the night talking about our problems.”   
  
“Wait, middle of the night?” Tails’ ears perked up in alarm.

“Yeah?” she mentioned around her. “It’s pretty dark out already, can’t believe you didn’t really notice. Why?”   
  
“I kinda told Sally and the rest that I would just be going for a quick afternoon flight.” He shrunk in on himself as he talked. “I completely lost track of time.”

There was only one word Fiona could come up with to sum up this entire situation.   
  
“Crap.”   
  
  
\--------------------------   
  
Fiona had walked Tails back to his plane.   
  
“So, I guess this is it for a while. Can’t see Sally letting you go anywhere soon after getting home nearly six hours after the time you gave her.”   
  
Tails’ shuddered as he dug around the luggage compartment of his flyer. “Yeah, not looking forward to facing her.” He pulled a communicator out of the compartment and held it out to here. “Here.”   
  
She took the communicator out of his hand.

“I probably won’t be able to actually come and see you for a while. And the on/off signal of the beacon is kinda limiting. So here. You can use that to get into contact with me and the other way around. Text, voice or even video chat. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“No, I don’t.” She put the communicator away with a smile.. “Look forward to hearing from me. But, wouldn’t it be awkward if I called you accidentally while some of the other freedom fighters were there?” Awkward, now that was the understatement of the year.

“Don’t worry, I can see the ID of your communicator. And I know which freedom fighter or person has which ID, so I can hide it whenever you call at an inopportune time.”

“And most people at the base should have enough manners to not listen in on conversations. So I can just end it if people walk in.” he nodded to himself. “Yeah, it should be more than fine.”

Fiona smiled as her hand curled around the communicator in her pocket. “That’s great then. So see you soon.. Ish? As soon as Sally lets you out of her sight I guess?”

Tails scoffed at that. “So see you when I’m forty then?”

Fiona rolled her eyes and gave him a playful shove. “Come on, even Sally’s not that overprotective. Have a safe flight?”

“Yeah,” he climbed aboard the tornado and got it ready for takeoff.   
  
Fiona took some steps backwards as Tails slowly started the liftoff. it didn’t take long before he was in the air and slowly vanishing in the distance. She let out a sigh as she began the walk back to her motel. Hand tightening around the communicator. She probably wouldn’t hear from him for a while. Sally probably would confiscate his communicator somehow, at least if she hadn’t changed that much from when she knew her.   
  
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t get her own plans of the ground. She still had a few contacts of her own that didn’t loathe her presence. Time to give those a shakedown.   
  



	3. Chapter 3

Tails stood in front of the door of his house, key in hand as he tried to work up the courage to go inside. A quick glance at his communicator said it was past 3am. Come on, there was no way that anybody was still up. So if he was quiet, he should be able to get to bed without waking his friends, and at least get some sleep before Sally got a hold of him.   
  
She still would have his hide, but hey, the longer he could put it off, the better.

He gently opened the door, wincing at the squeaking of the hinges. He waited for a few moments, peering into the murky darkness. It felt more like the lair of a fearsome beast than his own home.   
  
He carefully walked inside and let the door fall closed behind him. As if on cue, the lights flicked on. Tails winced as he shielded his eyes from the sudden brightness.   
  
“And why are you so late, Tails?”    
  
Tails gulped as he shrank in on himself. Ohhh, Sally sounded  _ pissed. _

“I uhh… was out with Sonic after I got back from my evening flight!”    
  
“Weird.” One of the chairs swiveled around, revealing Sonic calmly drinking coffee. “I don’t really remember being away. I thought I was with Sally almost the entire day.” Sonic gave him a disappointed stare. “Not that great a lie when I’m right here. Not to mention it would just fall through the moment Sally asked me about it.” 

“Did you know how worried we all were? I thought you were getting home at six,” Sally took a step closer to him. “You could’ve crashed, or that criminal you’re so worried about could’ve captured you. No signal, no communication. We were worried sick!” 

Tails looked towards Sonic for help, any kind of help. A calming voice, a quip that took some of the heat off Tails, anything.

Sonic nodded. “Look, Tails, I’m not one to stick too close to the rules myself. But more than seven hours late? That’s pushing it a bit too far.”

Okay, Sonic probably had a point there, but come on, was he really so heartless as to leave Tails at the mercy of an angry Sally? 

“Why did you even stay out this late?” Sally asked, arms folded as she waited for his answer.

“I just lost track of time?” Tails said in a small voice.

“For seven whole hours?” Sally’s voice dripped with incredulity. “You didn’t even notice it becoming dark?”   
  
“Well I noticed, I just didn’t think about it. Kinda forgot I was on a deadline?” Tails rubbed his upper arm as he didn’t dare look Sally in the eyes. 

He couldn’t tell either of them what he’d been up to. This would all be so much easier if he could just come out and say he was helping Fiona. But the moment her name fell both of them would rush of and try and get at her. And the last thing Fiona needed was Sonic, Sally and every other freedom fighter attempting to drag her back to jail. And he couldn’t just be vague about who he was helping either or lie about it. Now that would make a mess that was just waiting to blow up in his face. So all he could do was to keep quiet about it and take the consequences of that. But why couldn’t they just listen to him when it came to things other than technical stuff. He wasn’t a child anymore. 

But still, as much as he wanted to dismiss their anger and worry as unfounded or overprotective , Sally had every right to be worried. He already kinda half snuck out without her approval, with only a hurried comment that he would be back before the evening, and then stayed out till late in the night, something he never did. 

“I’m sorry Sally,” He really was sorry about worrying them all, so that wasn’t a lie at least. But Fiona really did need his help, he couldn’t have left her stranded and alone. Right? ”I really am. I’ll try to not do it again.” 

Sally’s face softened slightly and she pulled him into a hug. “You better not.”

Tails relaxed and leaned into the hug. “You still angry?”

“Yes,” she bluntly said. “And you’re grounded for a week. But I’m happy you’re back safe and that you apologized.”    
  
Tails laughed weakly. “Thought so”   
  
Sally let him go and Yawned. “Now let's all get to bed. I’m tired after staying up so long. We’ll talk about the rules of your grounding in the morning.” 

Sonic put his now empty cup of coffee in the sink. “Have a good night's sleep, Tails,” He said as he put his arm around Sally’s shoulders and gave her a quick peck on the cheek..    
  
“Night,” Tails mumbled as he rolled his eyes at the affection.

\------------------------------

Tails stumbled into the living room the next morning at what felt like an ungodly hour. His alarm had gone off at the same time as always, but his body didn’t seem to agree. So now, here he was, at eight in the morning, desperately trying to keep his eyes open as he shambled around with barely five hours of sleep.   
  
He grabbed his cereal and a bottle of milk with all the grace of a drunk trying to get a half-eaten breakfast burrito out of the fridge. He slumped onto the table and looked at the cereal box with bleary eyes. Something here was off. But he couldn’t quite put his finger on what, exactly.   
  
A bowl and a spoon clattered onto the table in front of him. “You forgot something, Tails.”   
  
Tails blinked. Oh, right. Stuff to put the food in. 

“Thanks Sonic,” He muttered as he poured himself some cereal.

“So, about your grounding. Me and Sally talked earlier about it,” Sonic started and Tails paid as much attention as he could in his sleep deprived state. “We’re cutting back your duties as a freedom fighter for the next month. No missions that let you out of the city. The only duties you’re allowed to do are Maintenance duties and paperwork. No using the workshop for anything else.”

Tails just dropped his head onto the table. ”Oh, come on, Sonic, no work in the workshop? Then what am I supposed to do with my time?”

Sonic shrugged. “It’s a punishment for a reason, Tails. Go outside, do more paperwork, get to know some people or meet up with your parents or something. But whatever you do, no workshop, no plane, and no missions or leaving Knothole.”

Tails groaned and pushed himself back upright, unenthusiastically eating the rest of his cereal. 

“What about my communicator? Am I supposed to turn that in as well?”

“I thought about it. But Sally was against it. Said you needed to be able to call people if things went wrong or you needed us.”

  
A small smile crawled onto his face. At least that meant he could still communicate with Fiona. 

“Where is Sally anyway?”    
  
“She’s talking with some government officials at the order of her father.” He shrugged. “Dunno what the hell that could mean. Either way, I’m supposed to meet her there soon. So... Remember: no workshop. I already told Rotor and the other engineers that you’re not supposed to be there unless for specific maintenance tasks. Which Rotor will be supervising you on. He’ll expect you to be there in an hour or so. Don’t be late. It’s part of your grounding.”

Tails just gave an affirmative grumble as he turned back to his food. Sonic walked out of the house and Tails heard him speed off as soon as he was outside.   
  
All in all… not as bad a grounding as he’d expected. 

He pulled out his communicator, and after a quick look around with bleary eyes to make sure nobody was around, he started typing.   
  
_ Just like I thought. Sally and Sonic were furious and I got grounded, can’t leave Knothole and I’m doomed to paperwork and maintenance chores. I got to keep my communicator though. So that’s at least a small silver lining. _

He sent the message and put his communicator back into his pocket and finished his breakfast. As he was cleaning up, his communicator buzzed. His eyes went wide as he saw the message ID. He hadn’t expected Fiona to reply this quickly.   
  


_ That’s a relief, at least I can still contact you through this thing, still sucks that those two put you on lockdown. Good luck trying to survive all those chores. Paperwork is a bitch.  _

Tails couldn’t help the giant smile on his face as he read the message. But what now? Should he answer her? Get into a conversation? Or was this supposed to be just a single comment? His hands got clammy as his brain worked it over. What if she was waiting for a reply? If so, then not sending anything back would be rude, wouldn't it? But what would he even send back? What if she didn’t want a reply and just was happy with the single update? What if she thought he was being clingy and annoying and regretted the fact she accepted the communicator?   
  
With trembling fingers he typed out a short message. If it was short, he could just see how she reacted right? No big deal… right?

_ Yeah, I’ll need all the luck I can get.  _   
  
What even was the point of that message? Tails grumbled as he deleted it. Maybe he should wait till he had something useful to send to her. Like info on Scourge, like she’d asked for. But wasn’t he supposed to help her turn over a new leaf? Wasn’t emotional support and being a friend important in that as well? He didn’t want to come across all business-like.

He'd sent the first message without all this crap floating around in his head. Maybe that was the problem? Maybe he was just overthinking this.

And besides, he didn't have all day to agonize over this; Rotor would be expecting him in the hangar any minute. He had to send something.

  
But what? Maybe he should give her some more info?   
  
_ Yeah, but it’s only for about a month or so. So I’ll be able to see you after that. _ __   
__   
He reread the sentence and shook his head. That just sounded desperate and completely out of context. He rewrote the last part. 

_ Yeah, but it’s only for a month or so. So, hopefully I’ll be able to get some more info on Scourge, and the next time we see each other, we can put our notes together. _ __   
__   
Yeah, that sounded better. He nodded to himself and pushed send. He glanced at the clock eyes going wide in shock. He needed to get to the hangar, Rotor was expecting him in about 20 minutes and would totally tell Sally if he was late. Trying to ignore the heavy feeling in his stomach, he sped out the door. He was not eager to find out what Sally would do to him if he was late to his chores.

\------------------------   
  


Tails let out a sigh as he pulled out another part to check it for wear and tear. It had only been an hour and he was already bored out of his skull. He didn’t get it; how could something he loved doing in nearly every single way, be made into drudgework like this?    
  
He shook his head. What was different between maintaining the Tornado and maintaining the tools of the workshop that made the latter such a chore? He put the part back and tightened the screws holding it in place before stretching himself out, getting the kinks out of his back.   
  
“Tails, if you’re done with that, go and take a look under the hood of our lift truck, will you?” Rotor’s voice rang out through the workshop.   
  
Tails’ face fell. Oh, right. The reason the work was drudgery was probably due to the fact that whenever he finished one thing, Rotor would just throw more and more equally unchallenging work at him. Making progress a fleeting hope that got brutally squashed with just more unending work. He walked over to the lift truck and popped open the hood, rooting around inside to get a better look at everything. 

His ear flicked upwards as he heard the chime of his communicator, he absentmindedly felt around in his pocket for it. His eyes widened as his fingers grasped nothingness. Wait, where was it?   
  
“Hey Tails,” Rotor’s voice cut through the noise of the workshop.   
  
Tails shot upwards, slamming his head against the hood. Tails staggered backwards, rubbing the top of his head. “Ow, damnit! Stupid hood.” He glowered at the machine before turning towards Rotor, cheeks red with embarrassment. Red that quickly made way to pale as he saw Rotor coming towards him with his communicator.    
  
“You forgot your…” Rotor didn’t even finish before Tails snatched the communicator out of Rotor’s hand, shoving it in his pocket.    
  
He plastered a smile on his face. “Thanks Rotor, I knew I was missing something. You need anything else?”

Rotor crossed his arms and gave him a look. Tails could see the question burning behind the walrus’ eyes. 

“Nevermind.” He shook his head. “Anyway, you can finish up after this one. Rosemary is waiting for you at Sonic’s house. She wants to talk with you about something.” 

Tails deflated at those words. “Oh, any idea what, exactly?” 

Rotor shook his head. “I didn’t really ask. But it sounded important.”   
  
Tails’ ears went flat against his head as Rotor walked away. When put like that, he had even less of a desire to go and find out. With a sigh he pulled out his communicator, quickly glancing around to make sure he was alone before opening the message.   
  
_ Yeah, I'm looking forward to it! Knothole has to have something useful on that asshole. _

Tails sure hoped so; he didn’t want to disappoint her by showing up with nothing. He wiped the dumb smile off his face after he read it and put his communicator away, turning back to the engine. He no doubt was going to get another lecture after he got Home..    
  
\-----------------------

  
Tails walked into Sonic’s home, tails held low. Sonic, Sally and Rosemary were already in the living room, talking about something. Sally looked up as soon as she heard him come in.   
  
“Hello, Tails. She smiled and waved him over. “Your mother, Sonic and I were just talking about the upcoming royal banquet.”

Tails didn’t like the sound of that. He very much would’ve prefered another lecture about coming home late. Especially with how Sonic kept shooting him an apologetic look.

“Okay, but why did you wanna speak to me?”

Rosemary spoke up, “Because your father and I would like you to join us at the banquet. As former politicians of importance, it’s expected that we make an appearance, and as our son, we think it’s only right we take you with us. ”

  
Tails inwardly cringed at the idea. He always avoided the royal banquets and similar parties, but he heard Sonic talk about his experiences whenever he went with Sally. An entire event filled to the brim with politicians, enough politicking to make him ill, and the weird social rules of high society. Honestly, who needed four forks to eat a meal?

“It would mean a lot if you came with us, Tail,” His mother continued. “It would be something we could do as a family.” His mother’s tail nervously flicked behind her chair and Sally gave him a pleading look. 

Tails let out a sigh. “Okay then. I’ll go. When is it?” 

“In two weeks. And don’t worry about your inexperience with these things. We have plenty of time to teach you the necessary etiquette.” She clasped her hands together with a joyful smile on her face. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

Tails had his doubts and he would rather be doing something else then hobnobbing at some fancy party. Inventing stuff, hanging out with some of the other freedom fighters, meet up with Fiona. But he choked down his groan and plastered a smile on his face, regardless. Maybe she was right, and he’d actually enjoy going? In the end it was just another kind of party, and who didn’t like parties, right?   
  
\-------------------------------------------------------

A week, and three lessons of etiquette, later, Tails was ready to solemnly vow to never go to any type of party again if it released him from this nightmare. It had been a barrage of rules about  _ everything.  _ How to dress, how to eat, how to address people of higher station, of lower station, and everything in between. It was maddening. There was no way he was going to be able to remember all of that, and the worst was, they were barely scratching the surface. From what his mother had said, this was just a quick course, not touching on all the specifics. Just something to get him ready for his first banquet and not embarrass himself too badly.   
  
It was no wonder the aristocrats and politicians couldn’t get anything done in time. They were to busy studying their own stupid social rules.   
  
He slammed shut the book he had been given on high society manners and resisted the urge to throw it in the bin. He only had a week left, and there were still fittings for clothes he had to go through, and who knows what else. If he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of an audience, he’d better cram as much into his brain as he could.

But honestly, right now? He’d rather have suffered embarrassment than have his brain implode from trying to shove another dumb rule into his memory. He shoved his chair back and stood up. He needed some fresh air, or a break, or maybe both. 

“Weren’t you supposed to be studying?” Sonic’s voice rang out as soon as he stepped foot outside of his room.   
  
Tails gave him a tired stare. “I was, but I decided to take a break before I tried to eat the book in the hope that I choked on it, so I’d be put out of my misery.”

“Fair,” Sonic said. “I was about to run out to get a chili dog, how about you just come with? A walk and some good food might help air your brain out?”

“Sure, anything’s better than trying to study that mess.” He followed Sonic out of the door, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. 

“You holding up alright? You’ve been looking pretty stressed since your mom invited you along,” Sonic gently prodded.

Tails ran his hands through the fur on top of his head. “I’m absolutely not holding up. There is no way I can keep all those stupid rules straight. Why does anybody need so many different ways to greet anybody? Who thought that was a good idea?” 

Sonic laughed. “Mostly people with a fragile ego who need to be constantly reminded that, yes, they do still stand above others. The rest are their coat-tailers.” Sonic put his arm around Tails’ shoulders. “Just don’t care too much about what those bootlickers and egomaniacs are saying.”

“I just don’t want to embarrass myself? How do you keep yourself from putting your foot in your mouth? High society isn’t your stuff either,” Tails said with a sigh.   
  
“Well Tails, Sally covers for me a lot, and your parents probably will do the same for you. But in the end, I’m Sonic the Hedgehog, one of the freedom fighters, the one who defeated Dr. Robotnick over and over again, and one of the reasons that the Acorn Kingdom and their cushy banquets even exists nowadays. And they know it,” Sonic said a wide smile on his face. “They can moan, they can mutter behind my back. But in the end everything they’ve got they at least  _ partially _ owe to me. So I don’t really care much about it.”   
  
He poked Tails in the chest. “And the same goes for you, Tails, you were just as instrumental for the freedom fighters as I was. So keep your chin up. You’ve done more in fifteen years of your life than all of those bigwigs put together will ever do. You’ve got nothing to feel embarrassed about in front of them.”

“I know, I know,” Tails said with a wry smile. “But not everybody has your boundless self-confidence, Sonic. I just don’t want to look like a fool in front of a crowd.”

“I get that. tell you what. The moment you put your foot in your mouth, I’ll just make an even bigger mess to draw the attention away from you.” He patted Tails on the back.

“Sally would kill you for that.” Tails chuckled and fiddled with his tails.    
  
“Nah,” Sonic said with confidence. “She would understand. Now let's drop this conversation for a while. We’re here to air out your brain and get some chili dogs. Not to ruminate on the shitshows that are royal banquets.” 

“Yeah, that sounds good.” He just hoped he could stop thinking about the looming sword over his head that was the banquet. They arrived at the chilli dog stand and got in line, it didn’t take long for them to get served. The owner of the stall acted as though the fact that the heroes of mobius were there was no big deal. To be fair, with how often Sonic got his food at this stall, it was no wonder that the star power had faded a bit in the mobian’s eyes.   
  
They got their food and walked back home, chatting about nothing important along the way. When he got home, he could worry again about the upcoming misery. But for now? He could just relax and take it easy.

\----------------------------------

  
The days rushed past way too quick for Tails’ liking, filled to the brim with studying dumb etiquette, lessons about etiquette with his parents, and chores in the workshop. But there was one major thing that still needed to happen before the banquet, something that filled Tails with nearly as much dread as the banquet itself. Getting a suit fitted.   
  
“Can’t I just get measured and leave the rest up to the tailor or something?” Tails mumbled as he walked with his parents towards the tailor’s shop, feeling like a convict being escorted to his execution. 

“Nonsense,” his father said with a chuckle. “A good suit needs more than just your measurements. It needs to be fitted to your exact body type. Something that can’t just be done through simple measurements. A good fitting is vital for a suit, Tails.”   
  
“Exactly,” his mother continued “and you’ll need to be looking your best for the banquet. You wouldn’t want to look scruffy, now would you? You should be happy, Tails, the tailor pushed you in front of many orders, just so you could get a suit fitted to you in time for the banquet.”   
  
Tails had no doubt that it had taken a lot of leaning, bribing, and general throwing their names around to get that to happen, and that made him a little bit uncomfortable. How many other people had been inconvenienced by his parents, just because they wanted him to be at the front of the line? Would it be so bad to rent a suit, just this once?

They arrived at the clothes shop, where he was quickly ushered into a side area by the tailor and the man quickly got to work. 

“Raise your arms, sir,” the tailor curtly said.   
  
Tails did so, eager to get this over and done with.   
  
“So, Miles,” his mother started, “are you excited for your first royal banquet?”

“I guess.” Terrified and dreading every second of it getting closer… that was a bit like being excited for it. If you squinted “I just don't know what to expect from it all.”

“Music, good company, good food, dancing. There is a lot going on at a banquet. But for you, it’s mostly going to be about meeting new people,” Amadeus said.

His mother nodded. “Knowing the right people can open many doors for you in the future. So it's important to make a good first impression.” 

“Dunno, I’m kinda happy where I’m at right now. I like what I’m doing, inventing and building and kicking bad guys in the face,” Tails said as he obediently followed the tailors instructions.

“But there is so much more to life you could be doing than mere gruntwork,” Rosemary cut in. “Not that the grunt work isn’t important, but it isn’t fit for someone of your ability. With a little push, and some help from us to give you the opportunities you need, you’ll see what you are really capable of.”   
  
  
“I…” Tails sighed. He disagreed with that statement Inventing wasn’t gruntwork. Building things wasn’t gruntwork. But these were his parents, they meant well, and other people would probably kill to get even a  _ chance _ at all these opportunities. So wouldn’t it be ungrateful if he didn’t take them?    
  
The idea of leaving behind what he was doing now, however, really didn’t sit well with him.    
  
“I guess?” 

His father put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, quickly jerking it back when the Tailor gave him a glare. “Don’t you worry Miles, as soon as you’ve got this all behind you, you’ll be happy, and wonder why you didn’t do it sooner. I promise.”   
  
Tails very much doubted it.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Tails groaned as the ringing of his communicator pulled him out of his sleep. He gave a quick glance at his alarm clock, and saw that it was a few minutes past midnight. Who the hell could be calling him this late? He grasped for his communicator and groggily looked at the caller ID. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. It was Fiona.   
  
He quickly picked up.   
  
“Hey, ehm, hey Fiona.” He kept his voice low, hoping to not wake up anybody else in the house. Or attract attention from either Sally or Sonic, if they were still up. “Why are you calling so late?”

His ears flicked downwards as soon as he realized how that could come over. “I mean, not that I mind you calling, just asking.”   
  
“Yeah, I got what you meant. I thought me calling later in the day had less of a chance of you being out and about with other people. Didn’t, you know, want to blow your cover by calling and anybody overhearing us.” Fiona’s voice sounded tinny over the connection.   
  
That didn’t sound like a half bad idea. “So why did you call, did you need something?”   
  
“No, I… just wanted to talk to somebody. I’ve been in this city for nearly two weeks and I’ve barely had a conversation with people that didn’t involve threats or demands of payments.”   
  
Tails’ ears flicked upwards, his grip tightening on his communicator. “Threats? Fiona are you in trouble?”   
  
“No, I was just talking to some of my old contacts, and most of them really don’t like me anymore. Especially when I started asking about the bastard. They got angry and I left before things got out of hand. And I couldn’t afford the price of the ones who  _ did _ talk to me.”    
  
Tails let out a sigh of relief at that.   
  
“So, no. I’m fine, just a bit disappointed. I hope things have been going better on your end?” 

Tails cringed. With everything that had been going on, he hadn’t been able to get more info on Scourge. “I haven’t found anything, yet. Didn’t really have much time to get to it. But don’t worry, I will get to it. After this stupid royal banquet, I’ll have more time.”

“Banquet? Why are you going to something like that?” She giggled. “You’re one of the last people I know of who would go willingly to some fancy party.” 

“Yeah… the parents made me go.” He groaned. “I’d rather be anywhere else. But hey, they insisted. They’re even making me learn all the etiquette and other boring stuff. All they talk about is how it’s opening doors for me, and how it’s necessary to get anywhere.” He sat down on his bed. “I could care less about going anywhere. I’m fine where I am.”

“Can’t you say, thanks but no thanks? I mean they’re doing you a favor, but you don’t have to accept it right?” Fiona answered.   
  
Tails shrugged and nearly wanted to kick himself for doing it, it wasn’t like Fiona could see him. “Probably, not sure if they’ll listen though. They think I could be so much more.” 

“More? Tails, you’re a hero of mobius, a genius inventor” Fiona answered matter of factly. “How much more do you need to be?”

“I know..but it’s.” When she put it that way, why did he need to be more? Wasn’t what he was already good enough? Why did they constantly say that they wanted him to be more? It wasn’t like he was bumming around. But a part of him already knew why, he just didn’t want to admit it, not to himself.

“But what?” Fiona urged him on.

“They don’t like that. My parents don’t want their son to be a genius inventor, they want me to be like them part of the upper class.” He felt hollow as he admitted it, like he just stabbed his parens in the back. But he couldn’t stop the next words from coming out. “I hate it.”

There was a pause, and Tails kicked himself for making the conversation awkward.

“Tails, your parents are being shitty. Why don’t you just tell them off if you hate it so much?”

Tails shrugged. “Dunno, they’re my parents, aren’t they? I can’t blow them off if they want to connect with me.” The idea of marching up to his parents and telling them he wasn’t going through with this. That he didn’t want to go to something and that he hated how they treated what he loved now as something below him. He could already imagine how much he would be disappointing Sonic, Sally, and everybody else, and how hurt they and his parents would be.

“It’s not that simple. Some of the freedom fighters knew them when they were young, before everything happened. And they’re really hoping things go alright.” 

“That’s not just on you though, Tails.” Fiona said after a short pause. “Relationships between a parent and their child is a two way street. Believe me, I know.”   
  
Tails couldn’t help but hear the bitterness that seeped into that last statement. 

“I know. It’s just... frigging hard to say ‘no’ when everybody seems to be on their side. Or at least, hopes everything’s going to be hunky dory between us.” Tails rubbed at his muzzle, squeezing his eyes shut as he could feel the anger building inside of him at the thought of it all. “Can we talk about something else? This is making me feel worse.”

“Sure, just remember that I’m always willing to listen, alright?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Tails answered. “So what have you been up to, aside from trying to find Scourge?”

A loud sigh was audible through the communicator. “Absolutely frigging nothing. Most of my time was spent fruitlessly digging for info, and for the rest of the time, I’ve been up in my room like a frigging hermit. It’s annoying as hell to be alone in the city. I’ve got nobody around to talk to. You sure you can’t convince Sally to lift your grounding early?”   
  
Tails let out a bark of laughter at that. He quickly slapped his hand over his muzzle and hoped he didn’t wake anyone up. “Come now, you know Sally. She’s not gonna just let me off, and trying might get me grounded even longer.” The smile slid off his face.”You’re just gonna have to deal with it for a little longer. I’ll try to visit as soon as I’m ungrounded.”

“I’ll be looking forward to that,” Fiona replied.

A silence fell between them, and as much as Tails wracked his brain for something to say, he drew a blank.   
  
“So, uh,” Fiona started. “I’ll let you go back to bed. It’s late and I probably should also get some sleep.”

“Yeah, ehm, sounds like a good idea. Have a good night, Fiona.”

“Yeah, thanks. You, too.”    
  


Fiona hung up with a click and Tails couldn’t help but feel relieved and a little bit guilty. Relieved that she was alright, but guilty that he hadn’t checked up on her sooner. Him being busy didn’t really feel like a decent excuse. He had promised he would help her as she clawed herself back to the good side, but here he was, failing to even check up on her.    
  
He put his communicator back on his bed stand and crawled back underneath the blankets with a yawn. From now on, he would do better, that’s all he could do. He slowly drifted back to sleep.   
  
\---------------------------------------------

The few days he had before the royal banquet were spent studying for it and doing his chores. With some quick text-only conversations with Fiona squeezed in, whenever he had the time.   
  
Like everything else in life that you anticipate with dread, the evening of the banquet was there in a blink of an eye, and Tails stood in his room, awkwardly fiddling with his tie as he tried to get it knotted in a way that didn’t choke him. With a sigh, he gave up, letting it hang loose around his neck as he walked out of his room.

“Ah, Tails. You ready?” Sonic stood up from his chair, all suited up himself, no matter how many times Tails had seen Sonic in a suit, it continued to look weird and out of place on him. Sonic’s eye fell on the untied tie. “The tie giving you some trouble?”

“Yeah, I can’t seem to tie it without cutting of the oxygen to my brain.”   
  
“I don’t think a lot of people know how to do that. Probably would explain why those fancy parties are so boring. Nobodies brain is working.” He gently grasped the ends of Tails’ tie.   
“But I’ve managed to figure out a few tricks to keep it from choking you.”

Sonic knotted the tie and just like he said, it wasn’t tight, or cutting into his skin. 

“Thanks sonic,” Tails fiddled with the tie. 

“Glad to be of help, buddy.”   
  
“Well, don’t the two of you look handsome.” Sally walked in wearing the dress she usually wore for these functions and gave the two a look over. She brushed the messy fur on top of Tails’ head out of his eyes and checked the knot of his tie.    
  
“You’re looking stunning yourself, Sally,” Sonic said with a dopey grin on his face.   
  


“You flatterer, you’ve seen me in this old dress at least a dozen times, already.”She couldn’t keep the blush off her face though.

“I’ve seen the sun come up a thousand times as well. Each time is still breathtaking.” Sonic said, holding out his hand.

Sally giggled as she grabbed Sonic’s hand. “You always know what to say.”

Tails rolled his eyes at the corny line. “So when are we going?” 

The two realized he was still there and looked over to him.   
  
“Ehm, well,” Sally started. “Sonic and I are expected early on to greet the arriving guests. Rosemary and Asmodeus are coming over soon to pick you up themselves.”

Tails’ heart dropped. “Wait, if you guys are going to be busy with greeting people, then what am I supposed to do?”

“I think your parents are going to want to have you around. Introduce you to all their old friends and acquaintances they haven’t seen in decades,” Sonic piped up. “After that is done, well, you can mingle, check out the appetisers, and Antoine will also be there, if you really need somebody to talk to. But I don’t know if you’ll be able to do that before the dinner begins. Your parents have a  _ lot _ of friends.” 

Tails’ ears folded against his head and his whiskers twitched in annoyance. Being dragged around, saying hi to a lot of people he mostly didn’t care about? Yeah that sounded exactly like how he wanted to waste an evening.   
  
“I know it doesn’t exactly sound like a fun evening to you,” Sally said as she gently touched his shoulder. “But can you keep an open mind for me? Your parents were excited about this and you don’t know how this is going to go. If you don’t like it, then after this one, I’ll never ask you to go to another one again. But please, go at least this one time and try to enjoy yourself. Maybe you’ll like it?”    
  
Tails looked up at her and sighed. “Okay, I’ll give it a chance. But I’m holding you guys to that.”   
  


Sally pulled him in a hug and Tails hugged her back. “It’s a promise,” Sally said as she pulled back.   
  
“Now, if Sonic and I want to get there on time, we have to leave now. Your parents will be here in a bit to pick you up.” 

“Can’t Sonic just dash you two over at nearly the speed of sound?”   
  
“Not in these clothes I can’t. Last time I tried that, Sally looked like she went through a wind tunnel and I ripped my pants.” Sonic winked. “Not a look you want at a fancy party.”

Tails rubbed his upper arm nervously. “Oh, right.” 

“It’ll be fine. Your parents will be here before you know it,” Sonic tried to reassure him.   
  
He knew all too well his parents would be here soon, but without Sally or Sonic to cushion it all, that was what he was afraid off.

\-----------------

He only had to wait around half an hour before the bell rang again, but they felt like an eternity. He quickly opened the door and gave both of his parents a plastered-on smile. “Hello.”   
  
“Good evening, Miles,” His father said with a smile on his muzzle. “You ready to go?” 

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Tails couldn’t keep the nervousness out of his voice.   
  
“You’ll be fine Miles,” Rosemary said as she fiddled with his tie. “You’re looking handsome and I have no doubt you’ll fit right in with them in no time.” A sly smile worked its way onto her face. “Even with the ladies.”

Tails’ eyes went wide. “What are you saying?!”   
  
“What are you so shocked about? You’re at the right age to start looking for a girlfriend.” She smiled. “It’s not going to be all people our age, droning on about politics. Maybe a few of them can introduce you to their daughters.” 

“I don’t need matchmaking, Mom,” Tails managed to sputter out. “I’m not looking, at the moment. To busy with the freedom fighters and the workshop to really put any thought into romance.”

“I’m sure you can find some time for a lady in your life, Miles,” His father said with a laugh, before turning towards their transportation. “But let's get going before we’re late.”

They didn’t just have their own car, already a rarity for personal transport inside of knothole. The public transport system, having been incorporated into the city’s design during the rebuilding, was efficient enough that most people didn’t need their own car to get somewhere on time. But this was a full blown  _ limousine, _ and he could vaguely see the outline of a driver through the tinted windows. 

His eyes went wide at the opulence on display, nervously wringing his hands as he followed his father and mother. He’d been in expensive vehicles, he was sure his beloved tornado cost more than Sonic and Sally’s house, but that was “expensive with a use.” 

This was just throwing money around for the prestige. Almost like they were  _ trying _ to put themselves above other people.   
  
He ducked into the limousine after his parents and winced at the interior. Expensive didn’t even begin to cover it; everything looked handmade, it was large enough for at least eight people, leather seats that looked way too expensive to sit in, and even a fully stocked minibar and fridge stowed away to the side. How long did they expect the drive to last? It was less than an hour on foot. Why the minibar? Hell, it didn’t take more than an hour to cross the _ entire city _ with public transport. So why did they need any of this?    
  
“Impressive, isn’t it?” his father said. “It was quite difficult to find people able to build our transport with our required comfort in mind.”   
  
“It feels a bit like overkill?” Tails hesitantly said. “I mean, it’s cool, but I dunno. Most of it seems unnecessary.”

“Don’t be so sure about that, Miles,” His mother remarked, and his father turned towards the window connecting the cabin to the driver. 

“To the Castle, please, Klein,” his father said and pulled the door closed. The thud of the door felt like the falling blade of a guillotine.   
  
No way out, anymore. This was going to happen, want it or not.


	4. Chapter 4

Tails got out of the limousine and looked up towards the castle of knothole and shivered. Politicians, minor nobles and who knows what else were also arriving and slowly filtering through the gates. His hair stood on end as he processed the sheer amount of people present.   
  
“Don’t be nervous Miles..” Rosemary gently brushed his hair back down. “You’ll do fine.” 

“It might look intimidating up front. But once it’s all in full swing, you’ll feel right at home,” His father tried to reassure him as they made their way up the stairs.    
  
Tails’ throat felt dry, no matter how much he swallowed. It’d be okay; with such a large group of people it would be easy to just be a face in the crowd. He would tag along with his parents for a bit, then sneak off and find Antoine or Sonic and see what they were up to At least then he’d have somebody to talk to that wouldn’t make him want to stab his ears. He just needed to keep a low profile and everything would be fine.   
  
He followed his parents up the stairs and towards the gates of the castle. They were quickly ushered inside, skipping ahead of quite a lot of people. Had his parents really been that important, so long ago? 

“Introducing Amadeus and Rosemary Prower,” a loud voice yelled out, echoing through the great hall and catching the eye of the crowd. “Accompanied by their son, Miles Prower, hero of Knothole and Freedom fighter.” The Mobian made a grand gesture towards the rest of the hall.

Eyes turned towards him and he heard conversation spark, catching snippets of them.   
  
“He’s a Prower? Hadn’t…”

“He looks so…” 

They all melded into one incomprehensible soup that made his fur stand on end, and suddenly he felt like his throat was being squeezed shut.   
  
“Miles.” A hand fell on his shoulder and he was pulled back to reality, his father gently pulling him along. “Come on, you’re standing in the way.” 

“Oh, right.” Tails’ tails curled around his leg as he got out of the way, wringing his hands. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right, we should’ve known you would be a bit overwhelmed. It’s quite something isn’t it?” his father mused as he led him away from the entrance. The next person’s name was already being loudly announced. 

Tails felt like ‘overwhelmed’ was an understatement. The large amounts of strangers, the glittering opulence of the hall, the all-around over-the-top  _ show _ of it all... … it hit like a punch in the face and left him dazed and confused. His parents either didn’t notice or didn’t care as they dragged him across the hall, introducing him to so many new people that their faces began to blur together after a while. Their occupations sounded meaningless to him. What the hell did an Assistant Orchard Deputy of the Agricultural Department even do? Were they just making positions up?   
  
“Well, I think that was mostly everybody we knew,” his mother said as they finally stopped talking with another person who, as harsh as it sounded, Tails had already forgotten.

Tails let out a sigh of relief. At least it was over. He immediately started to look around for Sonic, Sally, or anybody else he would know. He just wanted to hide until this was over.   
  
“So,” a vaguely familiar voice cut in, “finally introduced young Miles to the crowd?”   
  
Miles turned towards the voice and frowned as he desperately tried to put a name to the badger Mobian’s face. Some lord or something, maybe? His parents had introduced him at the beginning of the night. 

“Not to everybody, yet,” Amadeus answered. “But enough for today at least, quite a few of them are busy enough that they couldn’t come either. Hopefully, we can do the rest next time.”

Tails stifled a groan; he was going to have to go through all of this again? He tried following the conversation, but it quickly devolved into meaningless small talk that made him zone out. 

“Are we boring you, Miles?” his father asked with disapproval.

“Eh, well,” Tails stammered, shrinking down a bit underneath the trio’s gaze.   
  
The badger gave a polite laugh. “You shouldn’t blame young Miles for it. For somebody as young as him, our talk must be extremely difficult to follow.”

Tails’ ears twitched as he grit his teeth, trying to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to say that he wasn’t a child anymore, that he did more than any adult here. But if he just kept his mouth shut and played along for a little bit, he might actually get out of this.

“Sorry,” Tails said, trying not to let his irritation leak out. 

“True,” his mother agreed with the badger. “Maybe it has been a bit too much, it  _ is _ his first time at an event like this.”

Okay, so this was going in a good direction. With a bit of luck, they might let him off the hook and allow him to find a quiet corner to hide for the rest of the party.

“Exactly what do you want him to do, Rosemary? Go off on his own in a place like this?” his father asked. “Him wandering off on his own can’t be what he wants.”

That was exactly what Tails wanted.   
  


“Why don’t we introduce him to my son and his friends?” the badger suggested. “The younger ones always group together during events like these. Their talks also are a bit less focused on politics. ”

Tails’ ears flicked up in alarm; being forced to spend time with a bunch of people his age didn’t sound like his idea of a good time. “Er.”

His parents ignored him. “Yes, that is a good idea.” His father nodded. “Do you know where they are?”

“I thought I saw them last near the refreshments table. Follow me.” the badger jovially said.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It unfortunately didn’t take very long for them to find the badger’s son and his friends. The group was clustered near the refreshments table, as expected. 

The badger amongst the youngsters quickly noticed them. “Father, why are you here?” He glanced at Tails and his parents. “Who are they?”

“This is Amadeus and Rosemary Prower,” he gestured towards them. “And their son Miles. We were thinking he might like to socialize with you and your friends for a while. I think we’ve been boring him a bit.”

Tails could feel his cheeks heating up. Great, now he was the kid that all the other children had to play nice with because their parents asked. 

“Well, sure.” The badger didn’t seem too bothered by the request. Maybe it was common that parents just foisted their children off on each other during events like these?

“Great, we’ll leave you to it, then.” his father said

“Have fun, Miles,” his mother said before following Amadeus and the badger.   
  
An awkward silence fell over the group. Tails was unsure of how to break it.   
  


The badger took the decision out of his hands. “My name is Robert Von Tejon. Nice to meet you, Tails.” He held out his hand and Tails gave it a quick shake. The rest of the group quickly introduced themselves as well. A fox girl called Zooey, a coyote named William and his younger brother, George, and Elsa, a wolf girl. They seemed nice, at least.   
  


“Wait, aren’t you part of the freedom fighters?” Zooey suddenly exclaimed. “I think that’s what the announcer said when he introduced you, right?”   
  
Ah, at least talk about the freedom fighters was something he actually cared about. “Yeah, I’m Tails of the freedom fighters.” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. 

“That’s so cool.” George gushed, his tail wagging excitedly. “Is Tails a codename or something? Do all the freedom fighters have one?”

“Ah, no. Tails is the nickname I go by.” He hesitated. “I’d prefer if you guys called me Tails instead of Miles, though.” 

“Sure thing, Tails,” George said with a wide smile and wide eyes. “Can you tell us about some of your adventures? I mean you have to have had a bunch of them while fighting against Robotnik and the other baddies right?” George was bouncing up and down in excitement.   
  
“George, you’re pestering him,” William admonished his younger brother. “I’m sorry Miles, George can get excitable when talking about the freedom fighters.”

“I don’t really mind,” Tails reassured William. “There are plenty of adventures I don’t mind talking about.” 

“Really!? Oh, how about the times you defeated Robotnik?” George piped up, completely ignoring his older brother. 

“Well that’s a lot of stories. I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Tails said sheepishly. “Do you have a specific story you’d like to hear?”

George opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by Elsa. “George, the rest of us aren’t interested in listening to Tails brag about his  _ adventures _ .” She rolled her eyes.

George’s ears went flat against his head as he visibly deflated, Tails narrowed his eyes. That was just rude. Zooey awkwardly shuffled her feet, William and Robert facepalmed. But before an awkward silence fell over the group, Elsa continued. “Besides, Miles was barely twelve when the freedom fighters began their fight. What could he have  _ possibly _ done?” She gave a dismissive sniff.

Tails grit his teeth and clenched his fists as she dismissed all the danger he went through, dismissed every single time he went out and risked his life. All so she could stand here with her friends and be a snooty, stuck-up brat. He wanted to rip into her. To demand to know what she did to help free or protect the mobians from dr. robotnik's or any other villains sick rule. But what would his parents think? They had been so damn excited and proud.   
  
He swallowed his anger and forced a polite smile on his face. “Well I did quite a bit, I’ve been going on missions since the freedom fighters started.”

Elsa rolled her eyes. “And there you go again. Didn’t I tell you that none of us really cared for your bragging?” 

Tails awkwardly looked around the group. Noting the confused looks.

“How is me asking Tails to tell me a story him bragging?” George finally piped up. “I don’t get it.”

“Of course you don’t.” Elsa snapped. Ignoring how George shrunk back and hid behind William. “You’re only all too eager to feed into his ego.” 

“I don’t know what you’re doing here Elsa, but don’t you think you’re going a bit too far here?” William bristled. “You sure that his ego is the one we’re supposed to be worried about?”

“And what are you implying there William?” She snarled.

Tails grimaced as it all began to spiral out of control.    
  
Robert stepped in between them all. “Cut it out, is this really a way anybody should act at a time like this? Or at all?”

Elsa crossed her arms. “As if I’m responsible for that.” She glared at Tails. “Maybe you should say that to him?”

Tails eye twitched and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He needed to stay calm, to not make a scene. Like his parents told him he should. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about?” He carefully ground out.

Elsa rubbed her forehead, gritting her teeth together. “Of course you don’t. You don’t have a smidge of grace or knowledge of etiquette. Your parents must be so disappointed to have a son as,.” A smirk made its way onto her face. “ _ Uneducated _ as you are. Spending so much time with the  _ grunts _ in the workshop, it must’ve been impossible to get the stink of grease and metal out of your fur.”

  
  


The group gasped, Zooey clapping her hands in front of her mouth, eyes going wide. Others sputtering in indignation. Tails let it wash over him, not feeling the sting of the insult. 

“That’s  _ enough _ !” Robert snapped. “Elsa what has gotten into you?”

“I get the point.” Tails interjected as calm as he could. “I’ll be taking my leave then. 

“You really don’t have to,” Robert said hesitantly. 

“I’d just make things more awkward if I stayed,” Tails said with a shrug. “So have a good night you all.” He turned on his heel and left the group behind, ignoring the squabbling that erupted behind him. He had his own problems to take care of.

  
Namely, where the hell he was going to hide out for the rest of the evening.

\-----------------------

Tails sighed as he looked at the people mingling from his little hiding place. Well not really a hiding place, but it was out of the way and not a lot of people saw or paid attention to him. That was enough for him. Still, hiding out at the sidelines wasn’t exactly what he would call a fun evening. There was the urge to just leave. Go outside with the excuse of getting some fresh air and just walk home. He doubted people would notice. But he doubted his parents would very much like that and that would make Sally and Sonic kinda annoyed at him in turn.   
  
Speaking of Sally and Sonic, where  _ were _ they? Maybe he could hang out with the two of them for a little bit? It couldn’t be worse than hiding away and counting the seconds until the entire banquet was over and done with. He scanned the room, scowling as he couldn’t find them in the masses.   
  
“Tails?” A familiar voice rang out and he nearly jumped out of his fur. He looked over to see Sonic walk up to him. “What are you doing over here, weren’t you supposed to be with your parents?”

“Hello to you, too, Sonic.” Tails shrugged. “They left me with some people my age since I looked bored. It didn’t really work out that well.”

“Ahh,” Sonic nodded. “Do you want to tell me what happened?” 

Tails shook his head. “Not really, there isn’t much to talk about. Somebody was a stuck up brat and I left.”

“Okay then,” Sonic said. “You mind if I stay with you for a while, then? I’ve had my fill of all this.” He motioned towards the party. “For a while.”

“Sure, you can hide with me. But don’t you need to help Sally?”

“Nah, she knows I get itchy if I’m left with politicians for too long. So she won’t mind me not being around for a few.” Sonic chuckled. 

“Lucky.” Tails hesitated. “Sonic, are you sure I can’t go home early? I’m just waiting for this thing to be over, anyway.”

Sonic hesitated, “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. I think your parents would like that you stayed, I’m sure they’re going to try and talk to you later.” He reached over and put his hand on Tails’ back, giving him a hesitant smile. “Besides, you promised that you would go to at least one of these things. After this one, you’ll never have to attend another banquet again. That’s better than my situation.”

“Do you really think they’ll keep it to a single time, though?” Tails questioned. “The way they act, it seems like they’re expecting me to keep going to these parties. Even if I really don’t like them… or more like they can’t  _ fathom _ the idea of me not liking them.” His tails curled around him as he anxiously ran his fingers through his fur. “It’s like they aren’t listening to me at all.”

“Well, we’ll make them listen,” Sonic said resolutely. “You promised you would go to a single party, and if you didn’t like it, they wouldn’t make you go to another one. They agreed. They can’t weasel out of an agreement that straightforward.” 

“Dunno, they’re politicians aren’t they? Isn’t double-talk all they do?” Tails said with a frail smile, trying to make it seem like a joke.

“Your parents are honorable people, Tails. They’ll keep their word. I guarantee it.” Sonic reassured him with another pat on the back. He looked back to the party with a grimace. 

“You thinking of going back out there?” Tails asked.

“Yep, don’t like it, but I can’t leave Sally alone for too long. She might start thinking that I got myself in trouble or something. Wouldn’t be the first time I got cornered by a bunch of starstruck fans,” Sonic said with a shake of his head. “Be glad you don’t have to deal with those kinda people often. They can be  _ weird. _ ” Sonic shuddered exaggeratedly before looking back to Tails. “You wanna come with? Last time I saw Sally she was with Antoine, at least you’ll have a few people you know to talk to, right?”

Tails looked over towards the bustling party and, with a sigh, nodded. “Yeah, at least it’ll give me something to do. Just hiding out here isn’t really making time go by any faster.” 

“Okay, follow me, lets see if Sally is still where I last saw her.” Sonic said

\-----------------------

Sonic and Tails wandered through the crowd, looking for Sally. 

“Where did you see her last?” Tails asked as he stuck close to Sonic. He had to suppress the urge to just take off into the air and get an aerial view. That would probably make a scene.

“Over at the staircase. But I don’t see her there,” Sonic answered as he tried to look over the heads of the crowd. He rubbed his chin in thought.    
  
“Maybe we should check the second floor. At least we’ll get a better view right?” Tails piped up “And maybe she’s up there.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Sonic agreed as he started to make his way towards the staircase. “Good thinking Tails.”    
  
They made their way through the crowd, a few other people delaying them as they tried to make some smalltalk. Tails just kept to the side and let Sonic deal with it. Everything was going fine until they were halfway up the stairs.   
  
Sonic froze for a moment. “Oh, crap,” Hh muttered, just loud enough for Tails to hear.

“What’s the matter?” Tails asked.   
  
Sonic just pointed and Tails’ ears went flat against his head as he saw the problem. A gaggle of nobles, politicians and their hanger-ons were coming down the stairs. Their pompousness almost palpable in the air around them. They looked like everything he didn’t like about this type of party given form. “You know them?”

“Yeah, we gotta get outta here before…” he turned around.

“Ah! Sonic!” one of them exclaimed theatrically. 

“They see me,” Sonic deadpanned, eye twitching. He forced a smile on his face as he turned around. “Lord Castlestein, Lady Balchem, Sir Ledman. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you and your entourage today.”    
  
“Yes,” Balchem agreed with a wide smile on her face. “I don’t know what it is that always makes us miss each other at these parties.” 

Tails wasn’t sure if she was just  _ that _ oblivious to Sonic’s obvious distaste of the conversation, or if she was making some kind of snide comment about it. Could have been either, considering how these people worked.   
  
“It’s a mystery,” Sonic agreed stiffly. 

“And who is this young man?” She looked at Tails.

“Ah, that’s Tai.. I mean, Miles Prower.” Sonic caught himself at the last moment.

“Ah, right! Miles Prower. We’ve been introduced,” Sir Ledman cut in. Leaving Tails confused as to when he had ever met them. Were they some of the people his parents had introduced him to earlier this evening? Or was he supposed to know them from somewhere else?

“The Prower boy,” Sir Ledman continued, “he is your sidekick, right?” He dismissed Tails with a wave, a few agreeing murmurs from the others.

Tails’ fur bristled and his hands tightened into fists. Sonic’s hand fell onto his shoulder. Tails looked up and his ears went flat at the look on Sonic’s face, luckily not aimed at him. The withering glare was solely aimed at Ledman and whoever had agreed.

“Miles is more than a sidekick, Ledman,” Sonic said in an icy voice. “He’s a fully-fledged member of the Freedom Fighters and a bona fide genius with machines and whatever sciency stuff he does that most of us can’t even understand.”

Lady Balchem gave Tails an unimpressed glance. “If he’s so good with technology, why hasn’t he made that abominable AI obsolete, yet? It’s one of the most glaring security risks.”

“Nicole isn’t an ‘it,’” Tails snarled, causing the fops to take another step back. “And you should be giving her some respect! She’s the one that keeps half the city running.”

There were a few moments of silence before she began to laugh. Her hangers on joined in.   
  
“Here is somebody treating that overgrown program like an actual person.” She doubled over, holding her sides. “How ignorant can you be?”

“You’re wro…” Sonic tried to cut in. 

“She can think act and feel like everybody else here. Why wouldn’t she be a person?” Tails snarled, ignoring Sonic’s attempt to cut the conversation short and get the hell out of here. “And she isn’t a security risk.”

“Oh really, then how do you explain everything that happened when the Iron Dominion invaded?” Lady Balchem took a step closer. “They took control of  _ it _ and we were left wide open.”   
  
“It didn’t matter that Nicole was mind controlled by the queen of the iron dominion because of her ability to control technology. Our entire defense network was automated. They would’ve been able to take control of everything anyway and would’ve been left wide open regardless. It’s why nowadays we have manual failsafes and things that can only be activated by a mobian. To prevent something like that happening.” He took a step closer, looking up at her with anger in his eyes. “She wasn’t at fault. Our design was.”

“Hmph, well if she can still be taken over as easily, why is she still allowed to do anything at all?”

“Because she wants to help. Though I wonder why, if people like you treat her like shit,” Tails shot back.

“It’s a machine. Not even that, it’s a  _ program _ . It can’t  _ want.  _ Worse, it’s a defective program. We should’ve just  _ deleted _ her and gotten it over with.” Her eyes narrowed. “Before you try lecturing others, do try and get the real picture instead of blindly trusting your own delusions.”

Tails’ hackles raised, teeth bared and hands squeezing into fists. The urge to punch her in the face was rising beyond his control. 

“But I guess we can’t fault you for being ill-mannered and partially delusional,” Lady Balchem continued, an amused smile on her face. “I’m sure living through the fall was quite traumatizing for a child. Especially when the real people were too busy fighting against Robotnik to be able to care for you. Leaving you alone with a computer that talks in pre-programmed responses. No wonder you project sentience onto it. It was the closest thing to a friend for most of your life.” She let out a giggle, her entourage following suit. “Sad, really...”

Tails’ teeth ground together, seeing red and fists shaking he pulled back, ready to punch her in the face. But Sonic’s hand wrapped around his wrist, holding him back. Tears burned in his eyes..

“For your own good, I would really stop spouting bullshit, if I were you, Balchem.” Sonic had finally managed to get over his shock at the sheer  _ nonsense  _ Balchem had been spouting. There was a dangerous edge to his voice. He looked at Tails. “Don’t rise to her bait,” He whispered. “It’ll only make trouble for us, and she isn’t worth it.”

“Such a violent child,” Belcham said with a tight smile. “Well, that proves my point about him.”

Tails shrunk in on himself as the mocking laughter burst out. He did not resist as he was pulled along by Sonic, away from her and her cronies.   
  
“What a nasty piece of work.” Tails rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore the wet patches on his fur, as soon they were out of sight, still clenching his fists. “What crawled up her ass and died?” He looked up at Sonic, hoping that he could shed any light on that. 

“I don’t know. She’s always been like that, as far as I can remember. Cranky and angry at everything and everyone who doesn’t agree with her.” Sonic sighed. “It sucks, I know. But she’s got quite a bit of influence. So we have to tolerate her.”

“That’s stupid,” Tails groused with a dull look in his eyes. “Some people are allowed to put down everybody else while they have to be treated with respect?” He shook his head. “That’s just stupid.” 

This evening had just gone from bad to completely disastrous. He’d been insulted for doing what he liked, he’d been dismissed as nothing but a mere child, and one of his best friends had been judged to be a non-person who deserved to die. And in the end,  _ he _ was the one without manners and a bad attitude. His ears flattened against his head. This… this had been a mistake. He should’ve never given in to his parents and come here.

“Are you okay?” Sonic gently probed.

“After that?” Tails shook his head. “No, no I’m not. I...” He took a shuddering breath. “I just want to go home. I’ve gotten the message. I don’t fit here.”

Sonic grimaced at the dull look in Tails’ eyes. “I... no… well… yeah, maybe it’s been enough for today.” He pulled out his communicator. “I’ll leave Sally a message that I’ll be taking you home.”

It didn’t take long for Sonic to send the message, and he gave Tails a gentle nudge. “But I’m kinda proud of you, you know. For standing up for Nicole. You did a better job than me on that.”

“I don’t doubt for a moment you would’ve done the same if I hadn’t started to run my mouth like a complete idiot,” Tails glumly said. “Probably done better too.”

“Right,” Sonic said awkwardly, unsure of what to say. “Let's get you home.” he put his hand on Tails’ shoulder and began to lead him towards the exit. 

  
  


\-----------------------------------------

The cool evening air cleared up his mind, at least a little bit, and a quick trip with public transport later they arrived back home. Tails trudged inside after Sonic, carelessly throwing his suit’s jacket over a chair.

“Hey, will you be alright?” Sonic hesitantly asked. 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Tails glumly answered as he took off his shoes. “I’ll be going to bed, anyway. You can go back there, if you want. Can’t leave Sally with those vultures, right?” 

“Well, alright. If you’re sure about that,” Sonic said after a pause. “Just... try not to let the things that happened stick in your head right? Those people aren’t worth a place in it.”

“I’ll try,” Tails said with a weak smile.   
  
“That’s all I can ask for I guess.” Sonic walked back to the door. “Good night?”

“Yeah, good night,” Tails answered. The door fell into the lock as Sonic left. Tails rubbed his muzzle and trudged towards his room, flopping down onto the bed. He grabbed his communicator and, before he knew what he was doing, he had already opened it up and was scrolling towards Fiona’s number.

He wanted to talk to somebody. Yeah, but why did he immediately go towards Fiona of all people? She might be busy or not be able to pick up her communicator… if she even wanted to hear him moan about how horrible his day went. But it wasn’t as if any of his other friends were able to listen, anyway. Half of them were at the party themselves, and the other half probably wouldn’t be able to keep it to themselves as to how much he had hated the entire thing. He didn’t even  _ want _ to know how his parents would react to that little tidbit of knowledge.   
  
Maybe he could talk with Nicole about it, but he doubted he was allowed to go outside of the city just for a talk.   
  
But in the end, Fiona was the only one he knew of that was willing to listen. He began typing out a message.   
  
_ Hey, do you mind if I call you? _

Tails hesitated as he read the message over. What if she thought it was something important and then got annoyed it was just him whining about the party?   
  
He erased his previous message and quickly rewrote it.   
  
_ I’m back from the party. It went really badly. Can I call you? _

Still a bit awkward and on the nose. But at least Fiona would know what she’d be getting into. He pressed send and put his communicator away. He started digging through his closet for his night clothes. He was pulling his nightshirt over his head when his communicator began to buzz.   
  
He hopped over, quickly pulling his head the rest of the way through his shirt, ears flicking upwards as he saw the caller ID. It was Fiona. He hadn’t expected her to call this soon. Hell, he hadn’t expected her to call at all. He thought she would’ve just sent a message back. He quickly picked up.   
  
“Hello?” he croaked out and sat down on the bed.   
  
“Hi.” Fiona’s voice sounded slightly distorted through the communicator. “So, the party, huh?” she gently began.

“Yeah… it… didn’t go very well,” Tails said hesitantly. “At all.”

“Like, this-party-is-super-boring not very well, or...?” 

“Sonic-had-to-me-home-early not very well,” Tails elaborated. “I just couldn't take the people who were there, anymore. They’re...” Tails searched for a word to describe them. “Well, they’re bastards.” 

There was a stunned silence from Fiona. “That’s... strong language for you. What the hell did they do?”

He scowled as he thought back to the evening. “Mostly insults, lots of them aimed at me being, you know, not a fancy fop like them.” His eyes drifted to his feet as he thought back to the words Lady Balchem had thrown at him. “Or aimed at Nicole, and telling me off for defending her.” Tails let out a humorless snort. “One of them called me delusional for thinking of her as a person, or even a sentient being.”

“They did that?” Fiona’s voice rose. “What a bunch of assholes. Not to mention a bunch of idiots, if they can’t see that Nicole can actually think.”

“Yeah, I’m happy this was the last time I’ll ever have to go to one of these things. They’re about as fun as cleaning out a garbage disposal,” Tails replied.

“Worse, I’d reckon. At least you can have the satisfaction of having done something useful after cleaning a garbage disposal out.” Fiona quipped.

Tails couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

“You feeling better?” Fiona asked.

“A little bit,” Tails admitted. “Thanks for listening, and for, you know, calling back so quickly.” 

“The message read like you really needed somebody to talk to,” Fiona said. “Can I ask you one thing, though?”

“Well yeah, sure.” Tails nodded.

“Why did you come to me? I mean, not that I mind. But why me, when you’ve got so many other people to talk with about this?” Fiona said hesitantly. “Face to face, even. That must be easier than doing it through a phone.”

Tails stopped as the question hit him. Hadn’t he been thinking the same thing right before he had sent the message? 

“Well, they wouldn’t have just  _ listened _ to me,” He started. “This party… isn’t just about the party. It’s about my parents, my parents who wanted me to go to it, my parents who told me what to do. And my friends are involved in this mess. You're the only person I care about that doesn’t want all of this to go smoothly? Everybody else is trying to make this go well for everybody and I get why they want it to but...” Tails sighed “I’m really starting to doubt it’s going to work out. Unless a miracle happens.”

“Sorry to be blunt Tails, but if it keeps going like it’s now. Even a miracle isn’t going to be enough,” Fiona said.

Tails winced.

“It’s just,” Fiona continued. “all the work is coming from you? For all that they say they want a place in your life they sure aren't acting like it. You’re the only one putting effort in. You’re doing what they like, you’re trying to adapt to them. But I haven’t heard you talk about a single time where  _ they _ did something you liked. Or saw things from your point of view. Do you even  _ want _ them in your life?”

Tails’ eyes widened in shock at that little bombshell.   
  
“Because,” Fiona fumbled. “I mean. I don’t think I ever heard you say something good about them? You just talk about how you’re scared to disappoint Sally or Sonic. Or how disappointed all your friends would if things don’t go well with your parents.”

Tails’ jaw flopped a bit. Trying to form words, but his mind was unable to give any. He rubbed the side of his head. That was a terrifying question, one that had been lurking at the periphery of his mind for weeks and was now ripped to the forefront of his mind.    
  
“You still there Tails?” Fiona asked.

Tails swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, Yeah I’m still here. Just, the question shocked me.” he let out a nervous chuckle. “I mean, of course I want them in my life, why shouldn’t I? There isn’t a reason for them not to be right?”

“That’s something only you can answer Tails.” Fiona gently said. “ But what you’ve got now  _ isn’t  _ healthy. They’re not going to change, because as far as they’re concerned, _ everything _ is fine. If you really want to keep them in your life, maybe you should figure out what part you want them to play in your life. Instead of letting  _ them _ decide that.”

Tails knew what life he didn’t want to be part of. The politics, the backstabbing, the push from them to make him lead just like they did. But he didn’t know how to tell them all that. “And what if they don’t agree with what part I want them to play in my life?” Tails asked. Fiddling with the blanket of his bed.

“Hopefully they’re willing to compromise in a way that both of you can live with but...” Fiona trailed off.

“But?” Tails urged Fiona on, dreading the answer.

“Then it might be time to rethink if you really want them in your life. That you want to deal with people who want everything done on their terms and their terms alone.” Fiona flatly stated.

“Shit.” Tails cursed.

“Sorry I’ve been the bearer of bad news. But, you know, there is still a chance that they’ll listen when you talk to them about this,” Fiona nervously said, trying to cheer him up. “This is just the worst case scenario.”

“Lets, let's hope it doesn’t come that.” the words sounded hollow to his own ears. That worst case scenario sounded like the more realistic option. With how they constantly showed their disapproval for how he wanted to live his life. 

“Look, even if that happens,” Fiona spoke up, pulling him out of his gloom. “Sonic, Sally, Nicole, the rest of the freedom fighters, “she hesitated. ” Me. We’ll be there for you. You’ll get through it.”

“Thanks… doesn’t make what I’m supposed to do any less frightening,” Tails admitted. “Or easier,” He rubbed the side of his head. “But at least I’ve got some clue of what I’ll need to do. I think… I’ll be going to bed. Going to have a few rough day’s ahead, trying to parse through all of this. Thanks again for listening.”

“You’re welcome.” She answered. “And yeah, going to bed sounds like a good plan, it is getting late. Good night Tails.”   
  
“Night, Fiona.” He waited till he heard her hang up. Before closing the communicator and putting it on his bed stand. Sighing as he rested his head in his hands. 

Figure out what part he wanted his parents to play in his life. Easier said than done. He pulled the blankets over himself, he, he’d think it over tomorrow.

  
\-----------------------------------------------------

Sally waded through the crowd, trying to find Tails’ parents and dodging the people trying to talk to her. She’d gotten Sonic’s message and her mind was racing with possibilities as to  _ why _ he had to take Tails home. Each one more upsetting than the last.

She took a deep breath and tried to keep herself calm. Nothing would come from her constantly thinking about it. Sonic would come back to the party after he had brought Tails home. Then she could ask Sonic about why Tails left and tomorrow morning she could talk with Tails about it. Until then, she would focus on the things she could do. She should let his parents know that he went home. 

She plastered a smile on her face as she finally found Tails’ parents in the crowd talking.

“Rosemary, Amadeus,” Sally spoke up, pulling their attention away from their current conversation. “Can I have a word with you both please?” Her eyes darted towards the other people. “Alone?”

Rosemary and Amadeus frowned and both of them gave a quick look towards their conversation partner. Rosemary kept the conversation going with them as Amadeus gave Sally his attention.“Can’t it wait for a bit? It’s quite rude to just leave a conversation.” Amadeus said.

“No,” Sally insisted. “It can’t wait, but it’ll only take a moment. ” 

Amadeus sighed. “Alright then,” He turned towards Rosemary and the group of nobles, a few words and apologies were given and the two finally disentangled them from their group, following her.

“So what was so important that it needed our immediate attention?” Rosemary said, not even bothering to hide her annoyance. 

Sally gave an awkward smile. “I came to tell you that Sonic took Tails home.”   
  
“Miles  _ left _ ?” Rosemary’s eyes went wide and her demeanor shifted. “Is he alright? Did he get sick? What happened?” 

“I don’t really know,” Sally admitted. “Sonic told me that he was taking Tails home and he was vague on the reason why. We can ask when he is back?” She offered.

“I don’t get why Tails didn’t talk to us about it?” Amadeus muttered. 

Sally’s eye twitched and she almost let her polite smile drop. They wondered why didn’t Tails tell them? They left him alone in this place, dropping him off with some strangers! He couldn’t have told them if he had wanted to! What had they even been thinking? But she pushed those feelings down. I mean, they were  _ his parents _ , what would Tails think if he heard that she went off on them? The relation between them and him was already feeling shaky to her. She, she didn’t want to accidentally push Tails even further away from his parents. 

“I have no idea. Maybe he couldn’t find you before he found Sonic?” She diplomatically said.   
  
“Maybe, still I didn’t think we were that hard to find.” Rosemary said with a sigh. “But what’s done is done. We’ll have a talk with him tomorrow about this.”

Sally made a mental note to talk to Tails before they did. 

“Could you let us know what happened when Sonic comes back?” Amadeus asked. “We would go talk with him ourselves, but we’re quite busy. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course.” Sally said with a thin smile repressing the urge to ask what the hell they were doing. “I’ll leave you two to your conversation then.”

“That would be appreciated.” Amadeus replied.

Sally’s smile fell as they went back to their previous conversation. That was it? They couldn’t even be bothered to stop schmoozing up with other people when their son was feeling horrible? She wanted nothing more than to leave and check up on him, but unfortunately she was the princess of the kingdom. Leaving would cause, issues. Both Amadeus and Rosemary didn’t have those stupid responsibilities. But they didn’t even entertain the idea of quick trip towards Her and Sonic’s home to check up on Tails. She shook her head as she walked towards the entrance. Sonic would be coming back any moment.   
  
She didn’t have to wait long before Sonic walked back in.    
  


“Is Tails okay?”

Sonic grimaced. “I think he will be. But right now? I don’t think so. I hope he feels better tomorrow. How did Tails’ parents react?”

“Fairly underwhelming,” Sally shook her head. “Couldn’t be bothered to be pulled away from their schmoozing. What happened?”

“I don’t know the whole picture , he was already feeling down when I ran into him. But while we were looking for you we ran into Lady Belcham and her entourage.”

“Please tell me she didn’t bring up Nicole,” Sally despaired. 

“We both know that bitter old hag can’t help but bring up Nicole whenever she can. Tails… well, reacted pretty much like you would expect,” Sonic said. “It pretty much devolved in a shouting match with Belcham being her usual nasty self.”

Sally rested her head in her hands, trying to suppress the urge to find and  _ throttle  _ belcham where she stood. But she doubted that would help anybody but that bitch. She could then spin a nice story about how violent the freedom fighters were. “I hate not being able to do anything,” Sally muttered.

“Yeah, same,” Was all Sonic managed to say. 

“I’ll, I’ll have to go and tell Tails’ parents about what happened. They asked me to do that as soon as you came back,” Sally said with a sigh.

“I’ll come with you,” Sonic answered. “Better that they hear it from as close to the source as possible right?”

Sally felt a grateful smile crawl on her face. “Thanks sonic.”


	5. Chapter 5

Tails stirred slightly as the early sunlight filtered into his room, forcibly dragged into consciousness. He groaned before turning over and shoving his head underneath the pillow. He didn’t wanna wake up yet, he didn’t want to face today. He just wanted to fall back asleep and escape it all. But his mind just kept replaying the events of yesterday. Him losing his temper, him nearly punching Belcham’s face, in front of an entire crowd. He didn’t even want to know how many people had been watching the fight.   
  
Tails tossed and turned for a bit more. But sleep wouldn't come for him. 

Tails sighed and threw the blankets off him. This was obviously not working. Maybe he should try and keep himself occupied. Keep those terrifying memories from resurfacing. Yes, that sounded like a great idea. Maybe, now that the royal banquet was finally behind him. He could get started on finding that info on Scourge. It had been weeks ago that he promised Fiona some leads and he really didn’t want to have to meet her empty handed. But the problem was that he was still being grounded. Every freedom fighter knew that he wasn’t supposed to be poking around in their system until it was over. And he really didn’t want to risk getting caught breaking the rules and having it extended.    
  
Tails blushed as his stomach growled. Maybe, he should think about this after he had had something to eat. He threw on some clothes and stumbled out of his room towards the kitchen.

“Morning Tails, you’re up early,” Sally looked up from her own breakfast. “I thought you would’ve tried to sleep in after yesterday.”

Tails groaned at the mention of yesterday. “Morning Sally, I tried. But I just couldn’t fall back asleep after I woke up.” 

“Oh,” Sally gave him a pensive look as he grabbed some of his cereal. He could feel Sally try and figure out when she could best bring up what happened yesterday. He sat down and poured himself a bowl. Well, if she was going to ask him about it eventually. Why not get it out of the way? Then at least he could spend the rest of the day trying to forget it all.

“You can ask about yesterday,” Tails began. “Talking about it is going to suck, but you really want to know what happened don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sally admitted. “But you really don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want too Tails. I’m not going to force you to open up.”

“No, lets get it over with,” Tails said with a resigned sigh. “No sense in delaying to inevitable.”

“Right,” Sally started. Pausing to gather her thoughts before speaking. “I heard some of it from Sonic already. That you had a bad fight with Lady Belcham about Nicole. And I understand why, she's  _ unpleasant _ to say the least.”    
  
Tails could see from the expression on Sally’s face that unpleasant wasn’t quite the word she wanted to use to describe Belcham. 

“But he also said you were already a bit out of it before you met Belcham,” Sally asked. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“It was stupid,” Tails said, looking down at his cerial, unwilling to look Sally in the eyes. “Whatever happened shouldn’t have mattered at all. I should’ve just been able to ignore it. Or push through, My parents didn’t have any trouble, you guys would’ve handled it. ”

“But it did,” Sally gently probed. “Tails, just because you think whatever happened shouldn’t have affected you doesn’t make it stupid. And it  _ doesn’t _ make you stupid for letting it affect you either.”

“But it  _ was  _ stupid,” Tails insisted. “This was just,” he sputtered as he tried to find the words. “A stupid argument. I don’t even know why she started arguing. She just started to try and rip into me and I didn’t know how to handle it and she just kept going -”

“Tails,” Sally interjected, confusion writ on her face. “Slow down a bit? Who was arguing with you? Why?”

“One of the people my age my parents left me with while they were doing their stuff. I think she was called Elsa or something?” Tails shrugged, trying to keep a straight face. “And I don’t know, she just went off on me after one of the others wanted me to tell some freedom fighter stories. I couldn’t even get a word in between her insults. They weren’t even insults I cared much about. So it’s really stupid that I felt bad about it. Like Sonic said, I shouldn’t be letting them have space in my head.”

“I’m really sorry that happened,” Sally gently said. “But please don’t beat yourself up because something is bothering you. Even if it sounds stupid to be bothered by it.” She shuffled her chair a bit closer to Tails and gently ruffled his hair. “It doesn’t matter what it is, you know that if something is bothering you. You can always tell us about it and we’ll take it seriously.”

Tails glanced at Sally, doubts clouding his mind. Would they really take him seriously? If he suddenly opened up and blurted out his doubts about his parents. His throat felt dry as he tried to let it spill out. To get his doubts and fears out in the open. But he just couldn’t. Eventually giving up and staring at his food.

“Tails?” Sally gently asked.

“No, it’s nothing,” he shook his head. “Just bummed out that all I could do was to tuck my tails in between my legs and run.”

“Hey, you didn’t escalate the conflict. You judged that you couldn’t solve what was happening and you got out. That’s knowing your limits.” Sally said as she gently pulled his chin up. “That's a  _ good _ thing and I’m proud of you for knowing them.”

“I guess that’s another way of looking at it,” Tails admitted. “Thanks Sally.”

“You’re welcome, but I’m not the only one who wanted to know what happened yesterday.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Tails scoffed. “Let me guess, my parents?”

Sally grimaced. “Yeah, your parents also want to have a talk with you about it.”

“I really don’t want to,” Tails groaned. Hell, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to face his parents. How would they react? Did they want to know everything? Would they just berate him for messing up with lady balchem? Would they demand he gave that bitch an apology? The possibilities crawled into his brain. Each worse than the last.

“Tails,” Sally started. “If you really don’t want to deal with your parents yet. I can keep them off your back until you feel ready for it.”

“You would do that?” Tails couldn’t keep his doubt out of his voice.

“Yes?” Sally frowned. “Why would you think I wouldn’t?”

“Well.. euhm,” Tails stuttered out. “You, kinda have been on the side of my parents? I mean, you really tried to make everything go smoothly and make me go along with what they wanted?”

Sally sighed, leaning her head onto her hand. “Yes, yes I did. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone along with them. I, I just wanted everything to go smoothly and I pushed down whatever reservations I had because I thought they really deserved a chance. I thought that they were trying to connect with you in their own way.” 

Sally ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. “And maybe they are. But they… Well, it really looks like you’re the only one putting in effort to reach them. While they’re just… waiting for you to change into what they want.” She looked at Tails. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure that out Tails. And I’m sorry for helping them pressure you into things you didn’t want to do.”

  
A small smile worked its way on Tails’ face. It wasn’t just him and Fiona that thought things weren’t going well between him and his parents. It wasn’t him seeing things where there wasn’t anything. It wasn’t him being spoiled or bratty or making things out to be worse than they actually were. It was real. 

“I’m glad you figured it out,” Tails said. “I, I really was thinking I was going nuts for feeling like that.” 

“Well you’re not,” Sally smiled, “C’mere,” she pulled him into a hug. Gently rubbing his back.

Tails closed his eyes and leaned into the hug, putting his arms around her. After all the shit that happened yesterday, after all the stress that had been heaping up for weeks. It felt good to just have somebody hold him and tell him that everything was going to be alright. Tails gently pulled back. “Really, thanks for this.”

“I’m just happy we had this talk,” Sally admitted.   
  
Tails nodded, and for a few moments the both of them just focused on their breakfast in a comfortable silence. Tails almost couldn’t believe it. Sally would be keeping his parents off his back for now. He didn’t have to do the etiquette lessons anymore. He  _ finally  _ didn’t have to do anything that had even remotely to do with fancy parties. All he had to look forward to were some minor chores. So for the first time in what felt like forever. He had free time.    
  
Maybe, maybe he should visit Nicole. It had been weeks since he had managed to go see her. With everything that had been happening he hadn’t had the chance. Sure, he needed to find some information on Scourge. Especially now that his grounding was coming to a close and he could finally try and go see Fiona again. But he could go and visit Nicole and still have time to research Scourge. Maybe he could even get Nicole to help him sift through some of the data they had!

“Sally?” 

“Hmm?” She looked up from her breakfast.

“I’m going to visit Nicole today. And, can you, you know. Keep my parents busy, because well you know, I really don’t want to see them.”

Sally nodded with a ghost of a smile on her face. “I’ll make sure that they’ll give you some space.” 

“Thanks for that,” Tails sighed in relief as he quickly wolfed down the last of his breakfast. “When do I need to get back so I can do Rotor’s chores?” 

“Well, given what has happened. I think it’s alright if we weave the last few days of your grounding. Just be home in time for dinner alright?” Sally said.   
  
Tails could feel the massive grin forming on his face. No more dull mind numbing chores, no more restrictions. He was finally free from all that! “Thanks Sally!” Tails blurted out as he rushed to clean up what was left of his breakfast. Eager to go out and enjoy his newfound freedom. As soon as he dumped his dishes into the sink he darted out of the door.   
  
  


* * *

Tails panted heavily as he walked towards the entrance of the old freedom fighter base. His legs screamed for rest and his tail hung limply behind him, he didn’t even have the strength to prevent them from dragging over the floor. He really didn’t remember the trek to the base to be that exhausting. Being stuck in the hospital for nearly a week didn’t do any wonders for him. Maybe now that he had time he should talk to Aunt bunny, she could help him get back in shape.   
  
But that was something he could worry about later! He stopped as he passed a familiar stump. An excited smile crawling onto his face. He remembered the times Sonic and him used the slide hidden in this stump to quickly get inside. Maybe, you know, he should use it again. It had been ages since he’d used that entrance! So, why not give it a try again? You know, for old times sake. Tails leaned down and began to probe the stump. Now if he could just remember where that switch was hidden again.   
  
It didn’t take him long to find it. The middle of the stump flipped open. Revealing the beginning of the slide all the way down to the old base. He clambered inside and after quickly testing the ramp to see if it wasn’t going to collapse under his weight he let himself go.   
  
He let out a quick whoop of joy as he slid down the slide. Before quickly clamping his muzzle shut and hoping that Nicole hadn’t heard that. Somebody his age really shouldn’t get excited going down a slide of all things. Tails began to see faint trickles of artificial light shine as the end of the slide drew near. His eyes widened in horror as he saw what he saw at the end of the slide.though.. Or rather, what he didn’t see. No pile of straw to land on. Of course, the thing hadn’t been used for  _ two years  _ at the least. So why would anybody bother with making a cushion for something that wasn’t used? This was going to hurt. He braced himself for impact and hoped it wasn’t going to hurt too badly.

Tails yelped as he shot out of the exit and crashed onto the hard floor. His momentum was big enough for him to slide a few more feet before he came to a slow stop. He groaned in pain as everything ached. Sometimes, for somebody who was really smart. He really didn’t think things through enough.   
  
“Tails!” Nicole’s hard light hologram materialized in the room. Eyes wide with shock as she rushed over. Wringing her hands as she nervously shifted on her feet. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do I need to call Sally? Do I need to get the first aid kit?”   
  
“I’m fine,” Tails tried to reassure her as he finally pushed himself back on his feet.He brushed some dust off his fur. “Nothing worse than a few bruises. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Nicole gave him a quick look over, worry still etched on her face.

“Of course. Just a bit of a bump. I’ve been through way worse,”

“Thank goodness,” Nicole let out a sigh of relief. “You really worried me there, you know. Why did you even take the slide in the first place?” Confusion crept into her voice at the end.

Tails let out an awkward chuckle. “I don’t even really know? I just walked past the old stump with the entrance to the slide in it and I just… kinda wanted to do it for old time’s sake? I guess I didn’t really think about the fact that there wouldn’t be something to land on anymore.”

“You doofus,” Nicole said with a fond smile on her face. 

“At least it doesn’t happen too often right. So, well how have you been doing Nicole?”

“About as well as I can without being allowed to leave this place. ” Nicole sagged. “They tightened the restrictions on what I can access on the City’s grid lately. If it doesn’t have anything to do with some of the city's utilities I’ve been helping to keep up and running. I can’t have access to it anymore. No shows, no news, no nothing. The only contact I have with the outside world is what I get when people visit me.”

Tails felt his heart break as Nicole forced a bright smile on her face.

“But,” Nicole continued. “I’m handling it. I’m Just really glad for the fact you came to visit. Sally has been able to hop in a few times. So did Antoine and Bunny. But it’s been really lonely lately.”

Tails pulled her into a tight hug, her hard-light body feeling light and warm underneath his touch. Lacking the weight and solidity of flesh and blood. “I’m really sorry I didn’t visit earlier Nicole. I really should’ve.”

“Come on, you were busy with healing and preparing for that royal banquet Sally told me about,” Nicole reassured him as she gently patted him on the back. “Not to mention the fact you got grounded because you stumbled through the door in the middle of the night.”   
  
Nicolle pulled back and smiled at him, a curious glint in her eyes. “So, what were you doing that caused you to come home that late?”

Tails let out an awkward chuckle as he averted his eyes. “Well, uehm. I just forgot the time while I was out on a flight. It happens.”

“I can’t really say it comes as a surprise,” Nicole teased. “There used to be times I had to pull you away from your projects because you forgot to eat. But still, more than 5 hours late?”

“It was a one time thing,” Tails pouted as he prepared to lie through his teeth. “I mean, I had been cooped up in the hospital for weeks. I just really missed being in the sky. Nothing else that happened really, honest.”

“Hmm,” Nicole cocked her head as she looked at him. 

Tails tried to ignore the sweat that began pricking at the back of his neck. Trying to keep his face from giving it away.

“Okay, I’ll take your word for it,” Nicole said and pulled herself out of the hug. “So, do you want anything to drink? I don’t really have a lot hanging about. But I Think I should have some beverages in the fridge still,” She tapped her chin as she walked over towards the kitchen area.   
  
“Sure, just gimme something that's still good,” Tails called after her. “The more sugary the better!”

He could hear Nicole giggle all the way over in the kitchen. “Haven’t had your fix in a while?”

“Yeah,” Tails chuckled as he made his way into the living room of the base. “Sally didn’t stock any while I was still recovering and all that. I’m pretty sure she hoped I’d kick the habit after it.”

Nicole snorted. “Right, Tails’ kicking his addiction to sugary drinks. What’s next on the list of impossible things? Sonic not liking a chili dog? Antoine using margarine instead of butter in his cooking?”

“Well, Bunny did say that Antoine stopped getting a heart attack whenever she used margarine during her cooking. So he might be getting used to it,” He took the offered can of soda and flopped down onto the sofa. Nicole following suit.   
  
“Huh,” Nicole cocked her head. “What do you know, sometimes the improbable does happen.”   
  
Tails made himself cozy on the sofa and popped open his can of soda as the conversation slowly meandered off. Just two old friends catching up on more than a month of things happening and trying to make each other laugh to get through the bad times.. 

“So, euhm,” Nicole spoke up her mirth a little bith fading. “So, I’m kinda curious actually. I mean, I know you probably don’t don’t really like to talk about it. But, how are you doing? Physically I mean. Sally told me a bit about it when she was here. But she didn’t really tell me much. So i thought maybe you were willing to talk a bit about it?”

Tails rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, really, I’m fine. Aside from the few patches of fur that are still blue I’m not feeling any different. A bit out of shape sure, but that’s probably from being in the hospital so long and not doing anything to get back into shape. I feel fine.”

“Well,” Nicole nervously scratched her skin. “You know how I’m connected to everything in the base right, sensors included?”

“Yeah, I don’t really see what that has to do with the conversation though?” Tails replied, draining the last of his soda.

“One of them is a sensor for detecting you know, Chaos energy and other such mysterious things right?”

“Yess? I was aware of that, I mean I practically helped design this base?” Tails said, really wondering where this was going. 

“And well,” Nicole continued. “I can still sense remnants of some of that Anarchy beryl’s energy in you. And well, I’m just worried about it? It really can’t be good for you. Is it even normal for it to be lingering for that long? What if it still has an effect? Shouldn’t we actually see somebody that knows something about it so we can be sure you’re not going to be worse?”

“Look just because there still are some leftovers of it in … me,” Tails blinked as what Nicole had said finally took root into his mind. There was still that anarchy berl energy in him. Even a month afterwards, there was still enough of the energy to be sensed. Scourge had been using anarchy berl heavily for  _ years.  _ So what was stopping Tails from using that same kind of sensor again, but this time to find scourge? He would need to finetune them and make them more sensitive since it would obviously be a much fainter read. But this, this could just work!

A wide grin crawled onto his face. “That’s it, this is perfect,” Tails shot up from his seat as he started pacing on the floor. Designs and plans already mulling through his brain.   
  
“Er… Tails?” Nicole said, worry clearly audible in her voice.. “I fail to see how having energy literally created through  _ hate _ still in your body could be a good thing?”

Nicole’s words snapped Tails back to reality. “No, not what I meant. I meant that if the sensors can pick up residual Anarchy Beryl energy signatures coming from me, then they’ll definitely be able to pick up the same energy signature from Scourge! He’s been using the stuff for who knows how long, so no way it’s managed to crawl out of his system. I can use that to track him down!”   
  
Now Nicole looked downright worried. “You’re planning to track down Scourge? I haven’t heard from any of the freedom fighters that they were planning to make a move on him?” Nicole squinted her eyes at him. “Tails,  _ are  _ the freedom fighters planning to go after Scourge?”

“Well of course they are!” Tails let out a nervous laugh. “I  _ obviously _ wouldn’t be hunting after him if the rest of the freedom fighters weren’t going to help me, I mean, that’s just common sense right?”

Nicole just gave him a level stare. Tails honestly tried to keep a poker face, but it didn’t take long before he began wringing his hands, his eyes refusing to meet her gaze.   
  
“Tails,” Nicole asked again. “Did you tell the Freedom fighters about you trying to find Scourge?”

“I, I mean, no, but I would’ve, eventually. I mean, I just wanted to have something in hand before I brought it up?” Tails sighed as he rubbed his forehead. This would all be so much easier if he could just tell people about what was going on. But he knew how bad that would go over, even with Nicole,  _ especially  _ with Nicole. “Okay, look. Scourge nearly blew me up, caused an entire cave to collapse with me in it, which locked me up in the cave with  _ Fiona _ , of all people.”

Tails winched, badmouthing Fiona felt a bit bad, even if she still had been an absolute pain in the ass at the time. “But even worse than that. I was forced into the company of Cassandra. An absolute nutcase who wants to do things to me that I don’t even want to think about, let alone talk about,” The shudder that came over him when he even thought about her behavior was all too real.   
  


“I kinda want to get some payback in? He put me through what I can only call the absolute worst part of my life so far. And I want to get even,” Tails finished his little rant, having run out of steam. “The freedom fighters aren’t exactly putting Scourge on the priority list. But I’d guess if I managed to find out where he was I could easily convince the rest of the freedom fighters to help.

Nicole’s fur bristled at the mention, her teeth bared in a snarl that became worse and worse with every single thing he had mentioned. “Yes, Scourge really does deserve to get his ass handed to him for all he put you through.” Nicole growled out. She tightened her hands into fists as she took a few deep breaths. 

“Right, Calm, being calm helps you think,” She muttered to herself. “So, you’re going to make that sensor then. How much range do you think the sensor could have?”

Tails tapped his chin. “Hmm, I’m probably going to wire it directly into the Tornado’s power supply system. I could really add in a lot of sensor equipment to really increase the sensor’s base range. But I would guess maybe a hundred kilometers? A bit less probably since I would need to check for a faint signal,” Tails groaned, a search area of less than hundred kilometers, that would be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Even worse than that since Scourge could be nearly anywhere after a month . “Damn, this might not work out.”

“It will,” Nicole reassured him. “We just need to be able to narrow down the search area. With the amount of reports that the kingdom’s intelligence network generates on a daily basis. there has to be some relevant date in them. So it should be possible. ”   
  
“Yeah!” a giddy smile spread itself onto Tails’ face. “No matter how much data it is. You’ll be able to sift through it with ease.”

“The only problem is that I need to get access to those records. I still am locked out most of the system,” Nicole fidgeted with her ear as she admitted that. “But if we talk to Sally she could push this issue up the chain and get a temporary loosening of that restriction?”

“That won’t be necessary at all!” Tails grinned as he walked towards the computer console in the base. “I’ll just connect with my own credentials and give you access to the database through them, we won’t bother Sally and it’ll probably piss some people off when it gets found out. But hey, I see that as a bonus.”

“Best of all there is no chance of this backfiring against you,” Tails continued. “They are my credentials and if they ask I’ll gladly admit I was the one who gave you acces.”

Nicole fidgeted with her hands as she followed him towards the console. “Just be careful okay? I don’t want you to get in a lot of trouble for this.”

“It’ll be fine,” Tails reassured her and turned his attention on the computer. Shaking his head as he saw the signs of the amateur that had worked on locking Nicole and the rest of the base out of most of the network. How had she not ripped through this shoddy work the moment it was done? She really was too nice sometimes. Green energy gently sparked across his hands as he began to interface with the console. Data streamed directly into his brain, the processes the console was running, data about it’s pheripherials. The network the console was hooked up to. All of it and more pushed into Tails’ consciousness.

Tails brushed the majority of the information aside as he honed in on the things he needed. The active directory permissions and the fact that nearly everything was blacklisted aside from the few connections she needed to help manage some of the cities infrastructure. It didn’t take him long at all to unwind the security and restore Nicole’s old permissions and throw the blacklist in the bin. Now, to make sure they wouldn’t  _ ever  _ be able to put those restrictions on Nicole again. 

Locking Nicole’s rights about what she could or couldn’t do behind a freshly made account was easy. Just as easy as cutting out the usual backdoors that would make it possible for them to get around it. He gave his work a quick look over and nodded with a satisfied smile on his face. He would like to see them try to get around this. Making the connection to the kingdom’s intelligence network was child's play. He pulled his consciousness back from the network and did a quick sweep through the base’s local systems for a quick check.   
  
His eyes shot open when he saw it. The malicious code clinging to Nicole’s programming. Shackles of code inserting themselves into her processes, leeching processing power and blasting garbage data into her brain. Tails’ teeth clenched in anger. Not only that, but those shackles were downright blocking some parts of her neural network, disabling tracks of thought. It reeked of Dr. Robotnik's design. But it wasn’t him. Yes it was cruel, sadistic and right in line with how the doctor would act. But this was applied with the grace of a butcher using a rusty cleaver.    
  
If he ever got a hold on the person who applied this, the piece of shit who  _ designed  _ it. They were going to  _ wish  _ they were dead.

Tails’ reached out towards them, his focus curling around the shackles of data as he resisted the urge to just rip them out. He couldn’t hurt Nicole in the proce…

“Stop it!” Nicole’s horrified scream pulled Tails back to the real world. The lights flickered as Nicole’s hard-light hologram blinked out, the soda she’d drank earlier falling onto the carpet.

“Nicole?” Tails feebly called out, the reality of what he just did slowly sinking in. He’d reached into Nicole’s very mind. True, whatever had been done to her revolted him to his core. But he had just reached into her mind. If that alone wasn’t enough, he had done it with technomancy, the very thing that had been used on her to  _ brainwash  _ her into turning on her friends. What the hell had he been thinking?

Tails grabbed his head, his fingers gripping the fur tight enough for it to be painful as thoughts raced through his mind. How would he be able to make up for this? Why didn’t he  _ think  _ things through! Could he ever make up for this? What if Nicole spent the rest of his life shirking away from him because of what he could do? What if she downright hated him for it? He could feel himself tear up as those thoughts hammered in his brain. His throat felt tight, every breath a struggle. He staggered back to the sofa and plopped himself down.    
  
“Nicole?” he stammered out, his ears going flat against his head when there was no reply. Should he even stay here? Was he making it worse by not hightailing it out of here so she could work through this at her own pace without a constant reminder? Would leaving her here to stew in her own anger or other emotions she was going through make it worse? 

Tails didn’t know, and that was the worst part of it all. Not knowing what was a good idea or not, just locked in perpetual indecisiveness. 

“Tails?” Nicole’s voice pulled him out of his own thoughts. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Am I feeling okay?” Tails couldn’t believe his ears. “Am  _ I  _ feeling okay? What about you? What I did was  _ horrible.  _ Aren’t you livid?” 

“I was scared and upset, not livid,” Nicole gently corrected him, her hard-light hologram rematerializing in the room . “I still  _ am _ upset that you reached into my brain,”

Tails winced at that.   
  
“But I know you won’t hurt me, I  _ know _ you won’t use this to brainwash me or influence me,” Nicole sat down next to him and put her hand on his back. “I’ve known you all my life. You’re better than that, okay? Just, don’t try and use any of that on me again unless I give you permission alright? That was freaky as hell.”

“Okay,” Tails frantically nodded, “Yeah, I can do that.”   
  
Tails hesitated. “Nicole, I well… those shackles, why didn’t you tell us about them? They must be,” Tails trailed of as he tried to find the right words to describe it. “Painful. They have to be extremely painful and more.   
  
“If we knew about them all of us would’ve made sure they got off and  _ stayed off  _ as soon as they were put on _ . _ Is this a recent thing?” Tails was almost pleading. Hoping that at least the freedom fighters didn’t fail to notice this. No, none of them could have known. Even Rotor, with him having the most technological aptitude of the freedom fighters, besides himself of course, didn't have enough in-depth knowledge about AI to be able to notice this. This would be on him, he should’ve seen this from miles away. He should’ve prevented this.

Nicole shook her head, “It’s, it’s been a few months since they were put on me. I tried to tell you all but I just couldn’t.”

Months, it had been months of her living with a horrifying abomination of a restraining bolt wired into her brain.  _ Months _ , and he hadn’t even noticed. Then something in the way she worded it called his attention.   
  
“Wait, couldn’t?” Tails’ anger began to boil again at the implications. The blocking of the neural pathways… So that was what it was for. “They actually  _ blocked  _ you from even thinking about telling us about it didn’t they? Your train of thought being shut down by that abomination as soon as on of your thoughts even hinted at being able to tell others didn’t it?” 

Nicole just nodded. Her eyes firmly on the floor.   
  
Tails swallowed his rage, rage at the people who did this, rage at the people who were sadistic and cruel enough to design this, rage at himself for not  _ noticing it _ . 

“Nicole, can I take the shackles off?” Tails choked the words out, teeth still grinding against each other in anger. “I won’t even use technomancy for it if you don’t want me to. But I can’t just let this go on. It has to be painful. You don’t deserve this.”   
  
“Please don’t,” Nicole said through ragged breaths, rubbing her eyes.

“But Nicole,” Tails started but was quickly cut off.

“I.. I know it’s horrifying, I know it’s painful. I feel my processes being slowed down, I feel the garbage data being blasted into my very being. But, if they’re on, they won’t shut me down. They’ll let me  _ exist _ ,” Nicole choked out. “I want to  _ exist,  _ Tails. I don’t want to live every waking moment with the fear that somebody will shut me down like an appliance. Or be destroyed because they’re afraid they can’t control me.”

Nicole wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tight. “I just want to exist.” She sobbed.

Tails gently rubbed her hair, returning the hug. “Okay Nicole, I won’t remove them if you don’t want to. But, just answer me one thing okay? Are you sure those feelings come from  _ you?  _ These shackles, they go deep and I can’t help but wonder this is just another way they’re trying to stop you from removing them.”   
  
He could feel Nicole go stiff at the mention of it and for a split second he wondered if that had been exactly the wrong thing to say.   
  
“I… I don’t know?” Nicole choked out. Looking up at him, holographic tears streaming down her face. “I.. I really don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Tails leaned into her. Rubbing her back as he let her cry it all out. “I’m not going to try and remove the bolts until you feel ready for it. I promise. But, well I’m going to tell Sally about this. You told me you felt scared that they’ll shut you down. I don’t know if it’s the shackles or not. But Sally can help, she knows people. She’ll be able to help find the people who did this to you and prevent them from ever harming you in any way shape or form again.”

For what felt like a long time, the only thing that pierced the silence were Nicole’s sobs and hiccups and Tails dreaded her response, would she be against it? Would he have to try and convince her that Sally should know, that everybody should know? It was necessary, he couldn’t keep this as a secret.

“O..okay,” Nicole finally spoke up, rubbing the tears out of her eyes. “That… that sounds like a good idea.”

Tails let out a sigh of relief.

“Just, can you stay for a while longer? I really don’t wanna be alone now,” Nicole hesitantly asked.   
  
“Sure,” Tails said with a small smile. “Not a problem at all.”

  


* * *

  
Fiona aimlessly wandered through the streets of Greenhills. She knew that the best thing to do was to stay in her room and only go outside when she needed food, other essentials or when she was trying to get her paws on some of the few contacts that still wanted to speak with her. Even if she had about as much success dragging information out of them as trying to get a rock to talk.   
  
  
But if she had to spend another  _ day  _ couped up in that drab motel room with nothing to do she would go nuts. And Fiona rather liked not being bored into insanity. So she would just have to deal with a little risk to alleviate her boredom. She sighed, she wished Tails’ grounding would be over already at least then she could actually talk face to face with him again. Talking over the phone worked fine, but, well she wanted to actually  _ see  _ him again.

Fiona sauntered over towards a newspaper stand kiosk, maybe she could find something to read. Get some more news from the outside world and stuff. Her eyes flitted across the magazines and newspapers on display, trying to find something interesting.   
  
“Oh, fuck.” Fiona blurted out when she saw it. Right on there on the cover of some stupid tabloid was a badly photoshopped picture of Tails putting his arm around the shillouhette of a fox girl. An obnoxious amount of question marks surrounding the picture.    
  
‘Freedom fighter Miles prower spotted with a foxy vixen! Is it love or lust?’ Was printed in bold letters across the page. She cringed at the stupidity of it all. But she had to know if this was about her and Tails. She doubted Sally, Sonic or any of the freedom fighters followed the tabloids. But still, eventually they would get wind of this, somehow. They were the heroes of the Acorn kingdom, of the world even. They would have somebody around to make sure they weren’t dragged through the mud and that person would pick up on this eventually. She grabbed the magazine and flipped it open.   
  
“Hey, we’re not a library here,” the voice of the owner called out. “So I’m sorry, but if you wanna read it you’re going to have to buy it.”

“Oh right, sorry.” Fiona fumbled a bit and put down a few bills. Grabbing the offered change.   
  
“Happy doing business with you,” the owner said with a smile.   
  
Fiona gave him a quick nod as she walked off, flipping through the magazine until she found the relevant article. She couldn’t suppress a grimace as she read through it. Most of it being utter nonsense you would expect from a tabloid. But, some things were blatant tells that they were talking about her, like the mention of the vixen having Red and beige fur.Talk about her wearing bandages. Hell, even the bow she had in her hair was mentioned by the article. It was really obvious they were talking about her.   
  
Somebody in the motel had to be the one to leak it, somebody on the staff that saw her with Tails maybe? She shook her head and stuffed the magazine underneath one of her arms. It didn’t matter, she needed to tell tails that this article existed as soon as she could. That other tabloids might be running a similar story. She also needed to move out of the motel immediately . She doubted anybody would actually be on her trail, but a bit of paranoia never hurt somebody when you were trying to hide.   
  
Yeah, she would go and get her stuff together immediately. Haul her ass to another motel to stay in before the end of the afternoon and call Tails as soon as she was done.    
  
Fiona really hoped that she was blowing things out of proportion. But if she wasn’t, she really hoped Tails knew how to deal with it, or at least knew somebody that could keep their mouth shut who could help them deal with it. Because if this got out of hand, both of them would be in a shitload of trouble.   
  



	6. Chapter 6

Fiona checked her disguise, a simple baggy hoodie, long pants that covered all her bandages and she had quickly pulled her hair into a short ponytail. No hood to hide her face, no quickly rushed dye job to change her fur or hair. The more you tried to hide and look unobtrusive the more out of place you looked. Just break up your usual silhouette and try to blend in. That was one of the earliest lessons Fiona learned in her career as a criminal. She would look like just another bored teenager in the crowd as soon as she got out of the motel.    
  
Shoving her old clothes and whatever useful knick knacks she had picked up during her stay into her carry bag she walked out of the room towards the reception area.   
  
“I’d like the check out please,” Fiona said with a smile as she put down her key on the counter.

“Yes, of course,” The receptionist said with a cookie-cutter smile. “I hope you enjoyed your stay?”

“Couldn’t complain about it,” Fiona simply answered. “So how much do I still owe you guys?”

“You’ve been paying day by day. So you’ll only have to pay for this entire day.” The receptionist said as she quickly looked it all up and rattled off the number. “Cash or card?”

“Cash,” Fiona quickly said as she pulled out her wallet and put the cash on the counter. 

“Thank you,” The receptionist said mechanically. “Please come again!”

Fiona just gave her a nod, slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the motel. Already racking her brain as to what other options she had at her disposal to get a roof over her head. Plenty of options, but it was already past noon. So she really should get a move on.    
  
She fished out her communicator and quickly wrote up a message for tails.   
  
_ You got time for a call? Some really important stuff came up and I really need to talk to you bout it.  _

Fiona hesitated, finger hovering over the send button. Some part in the back of her brain fretting over every single thing in the message. It’s wordings, it’s implications. It was clear and concise right? Told him what she wanted from him. That they needed to talk. So why was she hesitating here? What could possibly be wrong with that message?

_ Maybe you want your message to be more than just a cut and dry status report?  _ A treacherous part of her brain offered.  _ Maybe you think he deserves something a bit more than that? Or maybe you just want something more personal when you message him at all? _

Fiona shook her head and shoved that thought back in the darkest depths of her mind where it came from. She talked to him just fine.

Still, with a sigh, she deleted the message and shoved the communicator back into her pocket, quickening her step. She could figure all of that out after she managed to get a roof over her head. Maybe she was just a bit weary, just some paranoia that people might be watching or listening in when he called her in response to her question. Yeah, that probably was it. When she had a place to herself she could talk to him in private.    
  
She nodded to herself. That had to be it, just her finely honed survival instincts telling her that what she was about to do was a dumb idea and nothing else.   
  


* * *

It had taken most of the afternoon. But Fiona finally managed to procure herself a room. She wasted no time in dropping her bag on the floor and just slumping into the bed. That was the first part of her problem all settled at least. Now, to finally get that message sent.   
  
Fiona sat up and fished the communicator out of her pocket, mulling over how to write it all.   
  
_ Tails, can I call? I’ve seen you in the tabloids, we really need to talk to figure out what to do with that? _ _   
_ _   
_ She winced, yeah, no. In the off chance that anybody got their hands on Tails’ phone. She really didn’t want to give it away that Tails was in the tabloids. And that  _ she  _ was with him in them. No matter how vague the connection. She grunted in annoyance as she rewrote it.   
  
_ Tails, we really need to talk. It’s important. Can I call you soonish when nobody is around? _

Fiona didn’t know what it was about how she had worded it. But she could feel the tip of her ears go red as she reread the entire thing. That sounded like she either wanted to break up with him or was mooning over him like some kind of lovesick teenager. Which was completely and utterly ridiculous. They were just friends and not the closest ones either.

She shook her head as she gave it another try.   
  
_ Tails, got some bad news. Can I call you in a bit? We need to act on it quickly. _

Well, that sounded better to her. Probably the best she could get done anyway without agonizing over it for literal hours. Which would be a total waste of time. Before her nerves changed her mind she pressed send and fell back onto the bed.   
  
She had gotten another hideout and sent the message to Tails. So now what? She didn’t know how long it would take for him to reply and she didn’t have anything pressing to do either. She rubbed her muzzle with her hand. Well, just lying in bed and not doing anything didn’t really appeal either, but what if Tails called while she was out doing something? She wasn’t about to talk about this shit if she didn’t have any privacy.   
  
A loud rumble of her stomach broke her train of thoughts. Right, food, she probably shouldn’t forget about that. She pushed herself back on her feet. Best not talk and think about all this stuff with an empty stomach. Take things one at a time, get food and figure out what to do when Tails messaged her when it actually happened. 

* * *

  
  


When Fiona got back to her room, Tails still hadn’t replied to her message, it hadn’t even been read yet even. A nervous feeling settled in the pit of her stomach, had something happened? Had people found out? Was he hurt again? She took a deep breath to calm herself down, it had been what? Just an hour or three? It was _ Tails.  _ The fluffball had probably gotten started with a project now that his grounding was over and forgot time was something that existed. 

She couldn’t help the fond smile crawling on her muzzle at that thought. She hoped Nicole, Sally or any of the other freedom fighters would drag him away before he fell asleep on his workbench again. Or maybe he just forgot to charge his communicator or something. Lots of reasons he wasn’t immediately texting her back.

Fiona rummaged through her bag and pulled out some of her notes. A mishmash of lists and tidbits of information she managed to wring out of them. If she was gonna have to wait, then she could at least try to connect some dots with what she had. She laid out the information and quickly began to read through it. Wincing as she saw the amount of struck through names. The ones struck through in blue were the ones she had already talked with. While the ones roughly scribbled out had refused to speak to her at all. Her mood fell as she looked at the paltry amount of contacts she had left. Most of them were too far out of her way to contact. But there was a single one that would’ve been easy to contact. Nic the weasel, her old partner that taught her most of what she knew. From how to find marks and contracts, to how to survive long enough to get paid for them. Her old partner that she had  _ thoroughly _ disgusted while working with the bastard. The person she had mocked and stabbed in the back when she had called Fiona out on her bullshit. 

Fiona groaned and buried her head in her paws. No way in hell she could face Nic now. Hell, she was pretty sure that even  _ if  _ she managed to scrape together the courage to contact her. Well, Nic would meet her. But only so she could put a bullet or two in her as payback for what Fiona did to her. She wasn’t sure what hurt her the most though, the fact that an old friend wouldn’t bat an eyelid to put a bullet in her? Or, the fact that she was fully within her rights to do so?   
  
“Why the fuck was I dumb enough to burn all my fucking bridges,” Fiona groaned out as she shoved her face into the pillow. “Good job getting yourself in this fucking mess.”

Fiona knew that she should be trying to look at the information she had to try and get some conclusions. To try and have stuff in hand to show Tails when they finally met again. But honestly? She didn’t have a fucking clue what to do with everything she had. Just snippets and rumours that the bastard had been seen up north and had been looking around ancient echidna temples and abandoned Robotnic bases. What the hell was she supposed to do with that?

The beeping of her communicator tore her out of her wallowing. She snapped upright and fumbled with it as she tried to get it out of her pocket. Mouth twitching into a smile as she looked at the caller ID, Tails, well of course it was Tails, nobody else knew of this communicator as far as she was concerned. But he was  _ calling,  _ not just sending a message.   
  
“Tails,” she excitedly said into the communicator, nearly wanting to slap herself for her tone. She was about to give him some pretty bad news, maybe she should tone it down a little bit. “Uehm, Tails, hi. I hope I didn’t ask for you to call at a bad time.”

“It’s, It’s fine,” Tails shakingly replied. “I really could use something to take my mind off stuff now anyway.”

Fiona’s ears drooped a bit as she could hear the sheer exhaustion in his tone. “Are you feeling alright? Are your parents being even more of a pain?”

“No, it’s not my parents this time,” Tails explained. “That’s actually going a bit better. Sally is helping me hide from them. So at least I’m not alone anymore while I have to deal with them. I mean, not that I was alone before, you were there to talk me through it. It’s just, I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Fiona gently cut off Tails’ stammering. “I’m glad that that’s going better at least. But what’s the matter then?”    
  
She really hoped it wasn’t too bad. No matter what had happened she had to drop her own bad news bomb on him. But she really really didn’t want to ruin his day completely.   
  


“Well, it’s to do with Nicole,” Tails started, anger seeping into his voice. “Some absolute monsters put a digital restraining bolt onto her brain, she was running around with that on her brain for  _ months  _ and nobody noticed.  _ I  _ didn’t notice for months. How shitty of a friend am I that I didn’t notice something like that immediately? Why didn’t I keep a closer eye on her? I knew that there were a lot of people gunning for her head but I just thought it would be  _ fine _ . That they wouldn’t dare touch her as long as the freedom fighters were around.”

Tails scoffed, “Shows what I know. Now she’s got a restraining bolt on her brain and is too afraid to have it taken off. Because she’s so terrified that the next time they’ll come around instead of putting a restraining bolt on her they’ll  _ kill  _ her and I just have no idea what to do about it. I can’t just say that we’ll protect her from them. We already were trying to keep her safe and somebody  _ still  _ managed to get to her.”

Fiona’s heart sank into her stomach. Crap, that, that was some serious shit. Poor Nicole, she didn’t know the girl very well, she and her didn’t really hang around each other much while they were in the freedom fighters. With the holo-lynx preferring to stay in the more technically oriented places of the base. But hell, nobody deserved to get their mind fucked with, and all this happened after the iron dominion fucked with her head before. Fuck, how unlucky could you get?    
  
“That’s a shitty situation,” Fiona lamely said, unsure what she  _ could  _ say to that. “But, I guess now that you know you can start helping her right?”

“Yeah,” Tails sighed, “I guess. I’ve told Sonic already, still waiting for Sally to come back from all the politics stuff she’s gotta do as the princess.”

Fiona winced as she imagined how Sally would react to the news of one of her friends and comrade in arms being basically mind controlled. For somebody as level headed and friendly as Sally. Well, that squirrel could fly into rages which would make robotnik himself quickly decide he’d have to be somewhere else. 

“But, I guess nothing you can do to help with that at the moment,” Tails continued. “So, well thanks for letting me ramble about it a bit at least. But what did you want to talk with me about? You said it was important.”

Fiona took a deep breath to steady her nerves, nervously fiddling with her hair as she tried to figure out a way to break it gently.

“Fiona?”

Ah screw it, there was no way to break this news gently. “Well, somebody saw us together. Nobody important or dangerous!” she quickly rushed out. “But well, we’re in a gossip rag. Or more accurately,  _ you  _ are. There is a bunch of gossiping and shit going around that you’ve finally found a girlfriend, or that you’re hiring escorts. The entire article is complete horseshit, but there are enough bits and pieces in it that people  _ could  _ figure out you’ve been hanging around me.”

“ _ Finally _ found a girlfriend?” Tails blurted out in an offended voice. “Finally? I’m not even 16! And escorts really? I’m still underage, pretty sure that would be illegal!” 

“I mean, I could… ”His voice wavered. “ I could get a girlfriend if I wanted… Right?” 

Fiona tightened her grip on the communicator at his tone. That wasn’t the Tails she used to know, stubborn and steadfast even with his back to the wall. 

“Well, I have two tails, and that really does look weird.” Tails murmured and Fiona had to strain her ears to hear “But that isn’t that big of a dealbreaker is it?”

Old memories of her time with the freedom fighters began to surface into Fiona’s mind. Tails had always been around. Laughing with Antoine and Bonnie. Working with Rotor. Playing a game with Sonic while Sally just watched on with a fond smile. But she never saw him hang out with people his own age. He never blew off any of the freedom fighters to hang out with other friends. She always thought he just never had time for them, never had a need for them.    
  
Fiona closed her eyes as the last memory crawled into the forefront of her mind. The day she had thrown them all away for the bastard. The day Tails had been pleading,  _ begging her _ to reconsider, to not do this. Pouring out his heart to her as he told her he knew she wasn’t like that.   
  
And she had crushed his heart underneath her bootheel and pulled and picked at the wound for months to come. Fuck, had she helped  _ cause  _ this?   
  


“Tails, you’re one of the kindest and empathic people I’ve ever met.” Fiona began in a gentle tone. Wishing that she could just reach out and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, or a pat on the back or  _ anything _ that could make him feel better. “Smart as hell too. I’m sure girls around the world are able to overlook the fact that you’ve got an extra Tail. You’ll find somebody someday who loves you for being you Tails. I promise.”

“We’ll see I guess,” Tails said in a weak tone. 

An awkward silence stretched between them.

“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Tails weakly muttered. “I mean, It’s just a dumb magazine. So you sure it’s really that big of a deal though? I mean, nobody I know really reads any of those magazines. And I doubt anybody but the dumbest of people really take those things seriously in the first place. So I'm not really seeing the big problem?”

Fiona let out a small sigh of relief as Tails dropped the subject and gave her a way out. But, she wasn’t going to forget this. Another entry on the  _ looong _ list of things she needed to try and set right or otherwise try to make up for.   
  
“Tails,” Fiona started to explain. “You and the freedom fighters are  _ celebrities,  _ you’re known all over the world. There have to be at least  _ some  _ people around who take care of PR. Especially for Sonic, Sally and you. All three of you are very closely connected to Acorn kingdom royalty. They are keeping an eye on things like these and will bring them to people’s attention to make sure nothing too horrible or false gets printed about you guys. What do you think is going to happen when they start looking into things like this and start connecting some dots?”

“Ohhh, that makes sense,” Tails said as the realisation finally set in. “And the more we come together, the more dots and the bigger the chance we’ll get found out.” There was a moment of hesitation from Tails. “Does that mean you want me to come over less to make sure they can’t get as easy a lead on us?”

“What?” Fiona’s eyes widened in shock, frantically shaking her head even though Tails couldn’t see it. “No! Absolutely not! I just wanted to get something ready in case things do start to get leaked? A plan, to make sure they don’t make the connection and get you in massive amounts of trouble with all the freedom fighters and then some because you hung around an escaped criminal.”

She could hear the sigh of relief from Tails through the communicator. “Oh, right, yeah. Makes sense. I mean, I don’t know anything about this kinda stuff. I guess Sally and people that work for the royal family always fix these things without me even knowing about it.”

“I mean,” Tails continued. “I could always just intentionally make a bigger stink? Give them a more juicy story to focus on so that they’ll forget about thi-”

“Tails,” Fiona cut him off. “This is love affair stuff, people eat that shit up like it’s chocolate. I hesitate to think about what kind of things you’ll need to pull off to make them forget about it.”

“I could always try to take over Knothole and rule it as it’s technocratic overlord!” Tails joked.   
  
At least, Fiona hoped it was a joke, with all the distrust aimed at Nicole and what some people did to that poor girl. She didn’t know exactly how far Tails was from taking some  _ drastic measures _ .

“Let’s make that plan  _ never,”  _ Fiona quickly spoke up. “The plan is to keep you  _ out _ of trouble in the first place. Not get you into an even bigger mess. It would be a bit counterproductive.” 

Tails let out a weak chuckle. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, Sally wouldn’t let me ever hear the end of it if she got wind of it.”

Fiona couldn’t help but laugh at that idea. “The great technocrat Tails, brought down low because Sally sent him to bed early.”

“Would make for a good article at least,” Tails mused. “But, a bit seriously. I don’t really have a clue of how to deal with it? I mean, I could ask one of the PR people for tips on that. But that would tip them off that something was wrong to begin with. Especially since they know I couldn’t give less about all that stuff.”

Fiona scratched her chin in thought. “True, well, I think the best thing we can do is to just come up with a story? Eventually people are going to notice all of this. But I doubt they’re  _ really  _ going to dig very hard. So if you just have a consistent and believable cover story that leaves me out of it all  _ and _ explains why the media would jump to these conclusions then it should be fine.”

“Well that does make sense,” Tails agreed. “It couldn’t be that hard right? What about me just having shown the hypothetical girl around? I mean, that’s basically what I did though?”

“It’s probably a bit harder than you think though,” Fiona spoke up. “I mean, the article said you were seen with a vixen in a motel. Why would you be showing her to a motel? Why would you even be showing her around in a city you don’t know that well?”

“Well, ueh, maybe she worked with the freedom fighters?”

Fiona raised an eyebrow, “Tails, the moment Sonic and Sally hear that excuse they’ll figure out there isn’t a freedom fighter of that description.”

“Right,” Tails muttered. “Damn it.”   
  
“Well, I think I have an idea,” Fiona cut in. “Do you spend any time on online forums of some kind? Or some other kind of online community thing? Or if not, do you think Sally, Sonic and the rest of the freedom fighters will buy that you use those things?”

“Well, yeah. I’m on a few of those. Feels kinda nice to be able to talk with people that enjoy the things you do. Especially if they don’t stop every two minutes to just gawk at the fact I’m a freedom fighter. Or scoff at the fact I’m only sixteen.”

“Let's use that then, Just tell the freedom fighters you met In real life with somebody you know from one of those places. It’s vague, mostly private and I doubt they’ll look too much into it. I know for sure you can fire off enough confusing techtalk to make even  _ Sally’s  _ eyes glaze over because she can’t understand any of it”

“That sounds workable?” Tails spoke up. “But what if they keep asking more, or worse, start thinking along the same lines as those people running the tabloid?”

“If that happens, then all you can do is to stick to your story and just weather the questions from the freedom fighters.” She grimaced. “Sorry about that Tails, but the freedom fighters are your family. Of course family is going to be nosy about a teenager meeting with the opposite sex. Best to just grit and bear it. Maybe act annoyed at it and they might stop poking?”

“Being annoyed won’t be an act if they overdo it,” Tails said with a weak chuckle. “I mean, how bad can it be?”

“You know  _ Antoine and Bunnie Rabbot _ ,” Fiona couldn’t help but deadpan.

“Crap, you’re right,” Tails groaned. “I’m really not looking forward to that. But, euhm. I guess that’s this settled. Well as settled as it can get at the moment at least. If things aren’t going to plan, I’ll let you know.”

There was a small pause before Tails spoke up again. “But, euhm… I mean, not that I didn’t think it was all important, or that I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I really want to talk to you. I mean, if that’s alright with you anyway. I’m not going to badger you if you really need to be somewhere else.” Tails rambled on. “I well, I mean.” Tails sighed, giving up on trying to fix his previous ramblings. “If you want me to hang up I will.”

“Please don’t,” Fiona blurted out. Cheeks heating up as she realized how  _ desperate  _ that had sounded. “I mean, you’re one of the few people willing to have a friendly talk with me and I really really needed that. I was pretty much going completely nuts with nobody to talk too.”   
  
Gods, when had it become so hard to talk to Tails of all people? 

“Oh, Okay!” Tails excitingly blurted out, “I mean, that’s understandable. So euhm, what do you kinda want to talk about?” 

“Well, when can you come and visit me again?” Fiona asked without thinking, the heat in her cheeks traveling all the way to the tips of her ears, making them burn just as red as her fur. At least Tails couldn’t see her face right now. He probably would be rushing to find a thermometer to check if she was sick. “I just need some friendly face to face contact again. And we still need to compare notes so we can get our hands on that absolute bastard right?”

“Right!” Tails jumped on that. “Speaking of which, I’ve got something figured out, a way to try and track him. Like with a sensor.”    
  
Fiona couldn’t help but smile as she could feel him trying to hold back the tide of technological tidbits and knowledge. Making sure that she wouldn’t be completely and utterly confused. “That’s good, so how does it work?” She gently prodded him and braced herself for the oncoming technobabble.   
  
She would probably not understand a word of it, she probably would get a headache if she  _ tried  _ to understand it. But honestly? She just wanted to hear the excitement she knew was thrumming below the surface. 

Her little prompting was enough for the dam to burst loose.    
  
“Right!” Tails began. “You know how I absorbed some of that anti-chaos energy during the last fight with Cassandra right? Turns out that after more than a month it’s  _ still  _ in my system.   
  
Wait, it was  _ what?  _ Fiona’s eyes widened in shock. Heart hammering in her ears as her brain brought back memories of when she dragged Tails barely breathing body out of that base unsure if she would lose him or not.

“Not that it's doing anything bad still,” Tails quickly placated. “More like there are still some detectable traces around. And, given that scourge has been using this stuff for almost an entire decade plus had some permanent changes to himself thanks to it. Well, if it’s traceable in me, then it has to be traceable in Scourge and probably easier to detect thanks to the difference in exposure.”

“Tails,” Fiona gently interjected. “Are you sure it’s still not doing anything bad to you?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Tails hurriedly said and Fiona couldn’t help but narrow her eyes in suspicion at the way he said it. “I mean, I’ve felt better, but hey, I’m feeling fine again. So no need to worry there.”

“Tails, please be honest with me?” Fiona pleaded. “I lugged you out of that base after you absorbed some of that energy from that shard. You looked on death's doorstep and It scared me to death. Can, can you please take this seriously? I really don’t want you to go through something like that.”

“I… Fiona, I’m fine, believe me on that,” Tails gently said. “I’m not made of glass you know, But if it really worries you that much. Nicole noticed all of that first and thanks to her now every single other freedom fighter knows. They’re keeping an eye out and are making me go through some more arcane and medical tests to double check my condition. On the very slight chance something is wrong. They’ll find it, so I’m fine, well mostly fine, My arms are quite sick of getting poked.” He weakly joked.

“Okay, okay,” Fiona nodded, that didn't sound too bad, and if people were looking over him, people knew of that strange energy still lingering inside of his body, he would be okay. “That, that sounds like the best you can do right now. So euhm, you said something about a sensor?”

“Yeah! As I was saying, It’s all simple pre-existing technology. I’m just using the same sensors that detected said energy in my body, scaling them up and adding more power, so the detection range increases. Now all that needs to be done is finding and honing in on Scourge’s signal. It’s a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack, but Nicole is helping me there and so are you!”

Fiona winced at that, yeah, fat load of good she was doing there. Tails was building a sensor to catch him. And all she had was, He’s up north, around Echidna ruins and robotnik bases. It was  _ something _ but it didn’t feel like she was pulling her own weight. She plastered a smile on her face, she needed a bit more time to really keep digging. She might have exhausted most of her leads. But there had to be  _ something _ she had to have overlooked. Something else that could make what she had more valuable. “Yeah, helping to narrow down the places you need to search, that’s me. Still,  _ when  _ are you able to sneak out again? Well, euhm, I would feel more safe if I gave you all that info face to face you know?”

“Yeah, that's probably the best way of going about it,” Tails agreed, his tone falling as he continued on. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to fly over soon though, Sally is doing a lot of politicking and smacking politicians into doing their jobs to deal with Nicole’s situation. I haven’t heard anything if I need to be around for that, to explain what the restraining bolt does and all.” 

Yeah, that could be a complication, the practical part of her let out a sigh of relief, more time to gather info and collate it into something useful. The part of her that had been staring at the walls in complete boredom was screaming. What the hell was she supposed to keep herself busy? Fuck, laying low was a lot harder when you were on your lonesome.   
  
“And,” Tails continued. “I think Nicole really needs my company right now. With Sally trying to break the spine of the bureaucratic system over her knee and Sonic busy trying to make sure Sally isn’t going to do something she might regret later, well they really can’t be around Nicole a lot. I mean, not like Antoine, rotor or Bunnie aren’t also pitching in a lot, but euhm,”

“I get it,” Fiona said. “She needs all the support she can get right now. Poor girl.” Fiona shook her head.

“Yeah, I mean, I can probably find somewhere this week or next week to come over though!” Tails tried to be optimistic, “I just can’t exactly tell  _ when _ . So euhm, do you mind if I just drop by on a short notice? A few hours in advance is about the best I’ll be able to do I think. I mean, not that you have to drop everything just to talk with me or something. You have your own life and all, s-”   
  


“Tails,” Fiona cut in. “I barely have anything to do here. There is  _ nothing  _ I’m doing that you could be interrupting. I’m just glad you’ll be able to come over at all. So no, I don’t mind it being on short notice at all.”

“Right, awesome! I might have the sensor ready by then as well. And maybe Nicole will be done sifting through some of her data for more leads that we can put together.”    
  
“Yeah, finally,” Fiona couldn’t help but smile at the happiness in his voice. The fact they were doing all this to find capture one of the most dangerous villains on moebius. A task that more competent people had attempted and failed at with access to much more resources. Was pushed in the back of her mind. Everything was falling into place, they were going to find the bastard and do what almost everybody else failed at, bring him to justice, lock him up for good and… and… and then what?    
  
She doubted Tails would stop talking and hanging out with her, at least she hoped so at least. But after all of this was done. What was she supposed to do? Sure, Fiona really wanted to turn over a new leaf and get rid of her, admittedly very deserved, bad reputation. But what the hell was she supposed to do to get rid of that?

“Fiona? Are you still there?” Tails’ voice pulled Fiona out of her thoughts.   
  
“Yeah, yeah,” she quickly answered. “Just thinking about something?”

“Oh? About what?”

Fiona winced and bit her bottom lip. She wanted to just open up, to just tell him that she didn’t know what to do after catching the bastard. But Tails already was dealing with a lot of shit on his end. His parents, him still recovering, the entire Nicole business, having to deal with keeping whatever was going on between the two of them secret and the tabloid business. The last thing he needed was her dropping more crap on him. Besides, there would be time later for her to talk about it with him. 

“Nothing really, my mind just wandered off a bit,” Fiona blurted out.

“Huh, you sure it's nothing? You’re not really that absentminded?”    
  
Fiona winced, yeah, Tails wasn’t buying it. Her mind scrambled for another excuse, something believable that wouldn’t end up making him worry and fret. Without being so vague he would feel compelled to keep digging. “Yea-”

She froze as she could hear somebody else yell Tails’ name through the speaker.

“Crap, That’s one of my parents. Sorry, gotta go, Bye!”

“Sure, sure!” Fiona couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, saved by the bell, well, curious parent in this case. “I’ll see you soon!”   
  


The communicator clicked off and Fiona didn’t know if Tails had caught the tail end of it. She fiddled with the Communicator before falling down onto the bed.    
  
What to do after all of this. Now that the thought had wormed itself in her mind it didn’t want to let go. Countless what ifs running through her brain and none of them made any sense to her. What was she supposed to do  _ after  _ this? Keep hiding like this for the rest of her life? Her only contact Tails who couldn’t be openly seen with her in public because of her past? Her stomach clenched at the very thought of it. She wanted to be able to hang with him without having to look over her shoulder, she wanted to be able to come over without the freedom fighters jumping her and capturing her? Hand over the bastard together with Tails and tell them all about how she helped Tails with it?    
  
She grimaced, Yeah, she couldn’t see  _ that  _ working out well either. After what she did Sonic wasn’t going to believe whatever she was saying. Sally wouldn’t even  _ bother  _ hearing her out before putting her boot on her face and the less said about what Nicole would do to her the better. She hadn’t seen the AI girl for years and never had been close with her. But she and Tails were thick as thieves and she had gleefully shattered his heart and ground it in the dust for the hell of it.    
  
Yeah, she probably should try to stay away from Nicole, even if she ever managed to get the other freedom fighters forgiveness. She let out a defeated moan. “Fuck it, why the hell did I have to be such a _complete and utter bitch_?”

* * *

  
  


Tails had barely managed to cut the connection to Fiona before his father walked into his personal workshop. 

“Euhm, hi?” Tails carefully offered. “Can, I, well help you with something?” 

“Did I interrupt something important?” Amadeus said with a sheepish smile. “It sounded like you were having fun with whoever you were talking to.”

“You heard that?” Tails’ ears went flat against his skull, crap crap crap. There was no doubt in Tails’ mind that if Amadeus had heard these things, about trying to find Scourge and all. That it would eventually make its way into the freedom fighters ears. And while they already kinda knew that he was trying to get back at the bad multidimensional Sonic photocopy. Knowing that he was talking about it all with somebody else would bring up all kinds of questions he honestly didn’t know how to answer, nor want to.

“No, I just heard you being happy,” Amadeus quickly explained. “Who were you talking to?”

“Oh,” now that was an opportunity to start building that cover story he and Fiona had talked about if he ever heard one. “Euhm, just somebody I met online on some kinda tech forum. I talk with her sometimes.”

“ _ Her? _ ” Amadeus said with wide eyes, an interested smile crawling on his muzzle.

“Yes, her,” Tails rolled his eyes, hell Fiona hadn’t been kidding about the entire being nosy thing. “Did you need me for something or can I get back to whatever I’ve been working on?”   
  
He aimlessly gestured towards the sensor parts lying on the table, just a few more adjustments and he could get started on the arduous task of integrating it all into the Tornado’s power systems. “I mean, I’m still kinda busy.”

“I, well me and your mother both to be honest, have been meaning to talk about your little outburst at the banquet.”

Tails’ felt like he had just swallowed a giant block of lead, his shoulders slumping and ears going flat against his back.  _ Outburst _ , way to reduce everything that happened to a single simple condescending word. It all made it sound like  _ he  _ had been at fault and not the absolute bitch that told him Nicole should  _ die _ .   
  
Eyes flicking around the room for any means of escape that didn’t involve flinging himself out of the window. He did not want to have this conversation, not now, not ever, he knew that Sally wouldn’t be able to keep them out of his hair forever, but he had thought he would’ve had a bit longer at least, like a few days!    
  
“If you both want to talk with me about what happened, maybe you should wait to talk about it until Rose, I mean my mother is there as well?” Tails blurted out, he knew he was just delaying the inevitable, but every hour not spent talking about this was a win in his book!

Amadeus just shook his head, “I’m doing you a favor by talking to you about it without Rosemary with us at first Miles, She, well,” The older fox searched for a word. ”She’s not  _ pleased  _ about your behavior to say the least.”

Tails’ winced, So Rosemary was pissed, great, this was just great. Maybe he should ask Sonic if he couldn’t hide with another freedom fighter group. 

“Neither am I to be honest,” Amadeus gave him a disappointed look. “Lady Belcham might have an opinion that wasn’t to your taste. But politics requires you to deal with and negotiate with people like that. Not everybody shares your own opinion, but we still need their help to put enough weight behind the reforms and laws that we care about to get them through.”

Might have had an opinion that wasn’t to his taste? Compromising with people who didn’t share his opinion? Having other opinions was fine, compromising was fine. But he drew the line when people started reducing others to  _ things. _ His hackles raised as he gritted his teeth, hands being balled into fists. Belcham had been telling him that Nicole wasn’t a person, that she didn’t deserve being alive. But  _ he  _ was the one being lectured?

“But instead you went and almost punched her in the face!” Amadeus continued on in a restrained and detached voice. “If Sonic hadn’t been there you probably would have! What could she possibly have said that would’ve been bad enough she deserved a punch in her face for at a place like that? Do you know how badly this reflects on you? On the freedom fighters? On me and your mother? We’ll be trying to fix the damage from this outburst for months to come! You might have to live with the damage for the rest of your life and career. Do you know how much you have  _ lost _ through that single outburst?”

Tails tried to swallow down the anger, but refused to go down, burning in the back of his throat like bile. Amadeus didn’t know  _ what  _ Belcham had said. Had he and Rosemary been so eager to discipline him that they hadn’t bothered finding out the finer details of it all? Didn’t they know the reason  _ why  _ Sally had been on the warpath and how that was connected to how people like Belcham thought it was okay to act towards Nicole like they did? Or did they know and just not care?   
  
“Belcham told me to my face that my  _ best friend  _ didn’t have the right to live,” Tails spat out, muzzle moving before his brain could stop it. “And she did it in the most degrading and patronizing way I thought possible. What was I supposed to do? Just let her get away with it? Be okay with the fact that people talk about Nicole like that? Accept that it’s okay people like her find attaching _ restraining bolts _ onto my best friends brain sensible? Just happily smile and let absolute bastards like her do their thing because we need their support for other crap?”

“No, but there are better long term ways to deal with such things-”

“Screw long term! Nicole has had her brain tampered with  _ now  _ and I’ll bet my workshop on it that Belcham and her ilk has something to do with it!”

“And  _ I _ know for a fact that you only found out about Nicole’s situation a day or so ago, you didn’t know that that was happening back then,” Amadeus steamrolled on, ignoring his argument. “Yes, it’s distasteful, it’s horrible, but Miles, you only gave people like Lady Belcham more ammunition to bring us down. She’s been using your violent outburst as evidence to undermine Sally’s and the rest of the freedom fighters protests about what happened to Nicole. Calling their judgement about the situation into doubt. She and her cohort have been saying that if the freedom fighters allow somebody as violent as you in their team they can’t possibly be looking at the reality of the situation and are letting their attachment to Nicole blind their judgement.”

“Anybody who knows me knows that I’m not violent, so that’s a stupid argument!” Tails snapped.

“And how many people do  _ know  _ you tails?” His father calmly asked.   
  
“If you hadn’t noticed,” Tails snarked, “I’m a freedom fighter, I helped free the Acorn kingdom. I’m kinda a big deal. So everybody in the city knows me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re a big public figure,” His father waved off his retort. “But outside of the freedom fighters, who really  _ knows _ you? You barely come outside of your workshop or house unless it’s for a mission. You rarely if ever make public appearances, you don’t have a circle of friends outside of the Freedom fighters. You barely come out into public! I’ll be honest Miles. People don’t know about you aside from rumors and hearsay. Which Lady Belcham is handley making use of, insinuating the reason you don’t come out that often is because the freedom fighters are keeping you away from the public to protect them from your outbursts. Painting you as some mad scientist!”

“Wha,” Tails blinked at the very stupidity of the idea, people believing somebody like  _ Lady Belcham  _ when she said he was violent… just because he didn’t come out much? “Nobody will fall for that.”

“Maybe not  _ all _ , but enough” Amadeus bluntly stated, “And even if it all blows over, All Lady Belcham needs is just that small group of people to doubt you and the freedom fighters for just a bit, to give herself an in to try and get them to listen to the rest she’s saying.”   
  
The words drilled themselves into Tails’ skull. Not only did he have the entire tabloid thing with Fiona to worry about, but now he had an influential politician slinging mud at him just because he dared to be an actual person and got upset at horrible things she was saying? “I didn’t want this,” Tails dully muttered.   
  
“Yes, I can imagine. But what happened, happened. All we can do now is damage control over your next public appearances, make you apologize for your outburst, maybe attribute it to you being still young and unwise” Amadeus put a hand on his shoulder. “This is a very bad situation Miles, but you can learn from this and prevent this from happening in the future. And don’t worry. Your mother and I will be with you every single step of the way.”

“Like how you and Rosemary were there at the party?” Tails couldn’t help the words tumbling out of his muzzle, nor the venom in his tone or the anger sparking at Amadeus' attempts to soothe him. None of this would’ve happened if they hadn’t  _ insisted  _ at pulling him in the limelight. He would’ve never heard of Belcham or any of these stupid politics if they just had let him be. But they just  _ had  _ to push and push and  _ push _ despite him being clearly uncomfortable with all of it. And he had been  _ stupid _ enough to go along with it all.   
  
“Excuse me?” Amadeus said, taken aback. 

“You heard me,” Tails snapped, slapping Amadeus’ hand off his shoulder. “Why should I put any stock in what you’re promising right now? You two dragged me to that thing and then just dumped me halfway into it. You two didn’t even bother to check up on me afterwards everything went pear shaped! That was all Sonic and Sally! All you guys do is do your own thing and drag me along for the ride, no matter how I feel on it all” 

“Miles,” Amadues at least had the decency to look ashamed, his ears pulled back. “Participating in political parties and events is just something that the government's leaders have to do. We need to know the important players and what they are planning. Not only that, We need to  _ be  _ known. It’s why we took you with us and why we couldn’t check up on you, it was also an important moment for us, with us being reintroduced to some of the old guard and introduced to new people.”   
  


“I never wanted to be a  _ leader  _ in the first place!” Tails snapped, his voice having grown loud enough that he was basically shouting. “I want to build, I want to invent, I want to fight for what’s right! I don’t want to tell  _ other people _ to build or invent, I don’t want to hedge around what is right and need to be done just to keep other people happy, and I certainly don’t want to constantly look over my shoulder and worry about the things I do can be used against me in a political sense! If you had actually cared to listen and talk to me you would’ve known that!”

“But  _ no _ !” Tails snarled “Instead you and Rosemary just assumed whatever you guys wanted me to be was something I was okay with!”

A look of hurt had crawled on Amadeus’ face and part of Tails felt bad for the older fox, that he didn’t deserve to be chewed out like this. But that part was quickly shoved out of the way by his still growing anger.  _ Screw that!  _ The both of them had pushed him in this entire mess and he was the one with the most trouble because of it! They deserved to feel bad! They deserved to have the knife twisted in the wound. He bared his teeth at the older fox. “You know what, if you and Rosemary wanted something that did whatever you told it to do and acted however you wanted, then you should’ve said so earlier! I could’ve built you a nice robot that does  _ exactly that _ ! Then you wouldn’t even have to  _ pretend _ to care and you could’ve left me the hell alone! Everybody would’ve been happy!”

Amadeus looked like he had been struck in the face. Staring at him dumbfounded as he was sputtering for words. “I, well...”

Tails turned his back towards Amadeus. He didn’t want to be in the same room as either Amadeus or Rosemary right now. He scowled as his gaze fell on the still unfinished sensor array he had been working on. But like hell  _ he  _ was going to leave. He still had important work to do for people who actually cared.

“Just get out,” Tails snapped.

“Miles,” Amadeus started. “Rosemary and I  _ do _ care for you, really. I admit that we dropped the ball here bu-”

“If you really  _ do  _ care then just get out,” tails said with a tired sigh. “I don’t want to see you or Rosemary for now.”

“I,” Amadeus sighed, “Alright, if that’s what you want.”

Tails waited for a few moments with baited breath, but true to Amadeus' word, the older fox walked out of the workshop, the door falling shut behind him. Tails slumped down on the chair, that, that hadn’t been pleasant and he hoped that Rosemary would get the message and keep away for a while. But, at least that was over, he had faced his parents, or at least one of them, about the entire mess that had happened a few days ago. And for once actually told them to screw off.   
  
He did it, he told them off, he finally stood up for himself against them. So why wasn’t he feeling good about it?


End file.
